By Nabanita Dutt/Eco-correspondent
ShopHandmade.com is the future of cross-pollinating art with the environment.
ShopHandmade has established itself as the trendiest new destination to buy and sell everything that is handmade, recycled and vintage. The website is growing faster than any handmade marketplace in the history of online retail. The company came up with the `Rewarding Creativity’ tagline, hoping to convey the message that `handmade’ was not just a money-making formula on ShopHandmade. To drive this point home, ShopHandmade set an example by forgoing profits itself. The site allowed craft-sellers to open their ShopHandmade stores at absolutely no cost. “We never dreamed it would take off like this, says David Kovanen, Director of ShopHandmade. ‘The site’s `art-with-an-obligation’ agenda is its unique selling point.”
For Kovanen, however, the job was still not over. His next big plan was to build so many `green’ links into the system that every transaction on ShopHandmade yielded direct benefits to the environment. To offset the carbon footprints of handicraft-production, for example, the site pledged to
save 25 square feet of rainforest for every item that sold on the website. The company also opened a parallel `second-hand’ marketplace called reSupply, where crafters could buy and sell leftover material from each other at nominal prices.
save 25 square feet of rainforest for every item that sold on the website. The company also opened a parallel `second-hand’ marketplace called reSupply, where crafters could buy and sell leftover material from each other at nominal prices.
Thanks to reSupply, the ShopHandmade seller community could lighten their garbage load on the environment and cut down on all incidental expenditures of recycling – such as chemical and energy use. No longer did they need to throw all the extra bits of fabric, skeins of yarn or a used rubberstamp or two into the trashcan. By posting reusable craft `wastes’ on reSupply, they could make an ecologically inspired as well as an
economical choice.
It is Kovanen’s belief that managing the environment at a grassroots level isn’t so different from managing a good home. “If we pick up the crumbs, carry out the garbage and put away the toys every day, we are not swamped by a mile-long list of weekend chores. Similarly, if we tidy up the environment and clean as we go, our to-do list of green chores does not spiral out of control and the merging of art and environment will become a seamless one.”
economical choice.
It is Kovanen’s belief that managing the environment at a grassroots level isn’t so different from managing a good home. “If we pick up the crumbs, carry out the garbage and put away the toys every day, we are not swamped by a mile-long list of weekend chores. Similarly, if we tidy up the environment and clean as we go, our to-do list of green chores does not spiral out of control and the merging of art and environment will become a seamless one.”
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