My Ecologi tree-planting impact to date: Why not join me and kickstart your own forest with 5 trees, and plant 5 trees in my forest to boot when you sign up!

Sustainability

When I was little, my Grandmother taught me the simple saying ‘waste not, want not’, which has been ingrained in me ever since. I apply the same principle to art materials, food and electricity.

I take sustainability extremely seriously and constantly evaluate everything I do to try to improve. 

My partner Jason and I live in beautiful, rural Scotland. Previously, we spent a year living semi-off-grid in rural Mid Wales and learned a lot from this experience. We are always working towards reducing our impact on the environment and the planet as far as possible.

 

Recycled Packaging

Jason and I save, reuse and recycle 95% of our packaging, especially cardboard, brown paper, foam and bubble wrap. Cardboard boxes are flattened for easy storage and reshaped where necessary to package up artwork being sent to a client. This applies even to large animal statues. The photo below shows a pair of Elephant statues awaiting their courier collection - every single piece of the cardboard, foam and bubblewrap packaging was recycled. Both statues reached their destination in perfect condition.

Tree-Planting and Carbon Offset

For many years I used the ParcelMonkey courier comparison website to send parcels, allowing me to plant a tree via Ecologi for every parcel sent, to help offset carbon emissions. Working with ParcelMonkey, I have planted about 100 trees to date, mostly in Honduras. Well over 500,000 trees have been planted through ParcelMonkey's collaboration with Ecologi.

Inspired by the ParcelMonkey - Ecologi collaboration (which has sadly been discontinued), I continue to independently fund tree planting as often as I can afford through Ecologi, both in the UK and further afield. To date I have funded tree-planting in the UK, forest restoration in Kenya and Australia, Rhizophora mucronata (mangrove) trees in Kandrany, Madagascar, Persimmon trees in the Appalachians, USA, the restoration of UK wetland and wildflower habitat, the prevention of carbon dioxide being emitted through protection of the Mataven forest in eastern Colombia, and the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through afforestation in Sao Paolo, Brazil. See my impact here: https://ecologi.com/loiscordeliacom If you use the below link to sign up for Ecologi to start offsetting your own carbon emissions, you and I will each receive an additional 5 trees to plant in our forests! Why not get started?

My website is hosted by UK2, which is powered by 100% renewable energy sources. I use Ecosia as a search engine, which plants trees for every internet search. I use Firefox by Mozilla as a web browser - Mozilla is helping spread awareness of the invisible carbon footprint of the internet and AI. It is estimated that the carbon emissions of the original training required to operate Chat GPT-3 equate to driving to the moon and back.

I am a member of Creatives for Climate, and commit wholeheartedly to their principles: active participation, collaborative mindset, inclusivity and humility, solutions through storytelling, and divesting from destruction. I follow and attend sustainability themed events and webinars hosted by the Theatre Green Book, which is a valuable resource for all creatives, not just those working in theatre.

Art and Art Materials

I seize every opportunity to reference environmental themes in my artwork and spread awareness. The Green Man or foliate face is a recurring symbol, as is the spider’s web (interconnectedness of biodiversity).

 

In terms of art materials, I have evolved my own painting techniques to minimise wastage in all areas. This is especially relevant when using acrylic paints, which are composed of tiny particles of plastic suspended in water. A tiny sliver of paint can go a very long way. People are often shocked to see how clean my paint water is. Where I do use a lot of paint for impasto effect, I make sure all the paint ends up on the canvas, with any excess going on my apron (I get a lot of compliments on my aprons and even offers to buy them as a result!) or a piece of rag, and an absolute minimum going down the drain. I save up dried paint to recycle in sculptures. I don't use spray paints or aerosols. I have to use acrylic paints for many of my projects, for their durability, permanence and quick drying time, especially for public art and murals, hence the above concerns are extremely important. One day, perhaps when I'm gone, I hope that my paint-covered aprons will be auctioned to raise funds for an environmental good cause.

For illustrations and animations, where the end result is often digital rather than physical, I tend to favour using sustainable, biodegradable materials: coloured pencils, watercolour, coffee and tea pigments, and paper-cutting. When creating shadow-puppet animations, I improvise and adapt a heavy duty racking unit to build my own shadow theatre, attaching lighting, diffusion screens, cameras and mirrors where needed. Shadow puppets are cut out of 300 gsm card for durability, often incorporating scrap card to add tiny details, hinged with staples or scraps of wire to make articulated limbs, hands, feet, etc., and animated using recycled bicycle spokes attached with masking tape to the relevant extremities.


When sculpting, I use sustainable materials wherever possible (metal, wire, cardboard, etc), and make considerable use of recycled and repurposed materials (upcycled plastic, found items, charity shop finds, etc.). I regularly go on litter-picking expeditions and often recycle foraged items such as aluminium cans into parts of sculptures.


In 2017/8 I worked with Oakman Inns to create a Green Man sculpture out of tens of thousands of discarded plastic drinking straws as part of the #banthestraw campaign. My metal sculpture involves zero use of welding to minimise the carbon footprint. Binding elements together with wire also symbolises the interconnectedness of all things.

When leading workshops, the first thing I always do is teach people how to  look after their tools and conserve their art materials, to minimise wastage. I check that brushes aren’t left to dry caked in paint. I ensure palette knives are wiped clean. I supply airtight takeaway boxes to make sure that unused paints can be taken home and used, rather than thrown away. I encourage people to squeeze out only as much paint as they are likely to need in the first place. Removing dried paint from around the lid of paint tubes before replacing the lid also ensures the lid seal remains airtight and prevents the whole bottle contents from drying out.

 

I have not used an aeroplane since 2009 when I became aware of the environmental impact of flying. If I need to travel abroad, I take a boat, which is slower, but a fraction of the impact. Jason and I work from home as far as possible and travel only when necessary.

I never wear makeup. I buy practical clothes that will last me for many years.

My hobbies are simple, low impact activities: freestyle dancing (often outdoors in wellies and mud), learning languages, and snail-mail correspondence to brighten other people’s days. I also enjoy gardening for wildlife, and am gradually in the process of transforming the barren paved desert of the 'low maintenance garden' we inherited when we bought our first house here in Scotland, by re-exposing the earth, adding containers, and planting a rich mix of native tree, shrub and wildflower species to create new hedgerow and meadow habitats.

When my Grandmother (whose 'waste not, want not' motto lives on in everything I do) died in 2003, I funded the planting of a grove of forest in the Scottish Highlands in her memory.

As far as possible, I try to live lightly upon the earth. We can all do our bit.


Loïs Cordelia, March 2025