sustainability

do you need this?

The relationship between manucafturers and consumers.

The environment we all love to enjoy is just SO important to us, any negative impact we have on this delicate system as a manufacturing company hurts us all.

It’s always a good idea to ask ourselves “do I need this?” or “will I really use this?” – The consumer drives the manufacturer.

At LOFI we are always looking for better ways of doing things, and making things. It’s not always easy, especially being a startup with no leverage in the industry, …but we’re trying.

what we're doing

How we are keeping small.

01 -

Website

Having a website on the internet can be hugely damaging to the environment. Keeping any server up and running, as well as database and image storage requires huge amounts of electricity. 40% of this energy goes into keeping the servers cooled!

The LOFI web-server is running on 300% renewable energy, meaning for every KW used, we’re putting another 2KW of green energy into the grid.

02 -

Energy

The LOFI workshop in Bristol is where the final product assembly takes place, and some of the simpler manufacturing processes also happen here. We are running all this on 100% renewable energy. Once our supply stream is finalised for overseas work, we will be asking these to renewable energy too.

03 -

Packaging

We’re re-using the same packaging that the parts are shipped to us from our overseas factories. We’ve asked that any packaging used is made from recycled board and the bags are biodegradable.

Our mesh bags are used to protect our products in transit too.

04 -

Recycled materials

Our long-term goals are to use recycled metals, aluminum, and titanium, etc. However, we’re finding this really difficult being a small startup, and having any leverage. Just getting factories to make something for us in the small quantities that we’re producing is difficult.

We have found a source of rPET mesh, which is 100% post-consumer waste. So our bags will at least be recycled and hopefully recyclable.

circular economy

upcycling

We will fully disassemble and recycle any returned products into their component parts for material recycling. Full disassembly and recycling instructions will be drawn up for you to download once the products are available for purchase.

words from the wise

some things for us to remember.

“Everything we personally own that’s made, sold, shipped, stored, cleaned, and ultimately thrown away does some environmental harm every step of the way, harm that we’re either directly responsible for or is done on our behalf.”

“We are at a unique stage in our history. Never before have we had such an awareness of what we are doing to the planet, and never before have we had the power to do something about that. Surely we all have a responsibility to care for our Blue Planet. The future of humanity and indeed, all life on earth, now depends on us.”