Hot fifty – Three Trees Don’t Make a Forest

Three Trees Don’t Make a Forest was set up to help the creative community take a more sustainable approach to its design and business practices.

The not-for-profit enterprise is essentially a website – www. threetreesdontmakeaforest.org – and a blog intended to raise issues and ask answer questions relating to sustainability. Questions raised so far this year include the need for USB rechargeable batteries in computer keyboards and the like, and the concept of a sustainable Christmas – are digital cards just too impersonal to be bothered with?

There are workshops and other events to stimulate debate and increase knowledge in this area.

The venture was set up by three women who continue to run their own creative businesses: Sophie Thomas is co-founder of ‘sustainable design’ specialist Thomas Matthews; Caroline Clark runs the website Lovely as a Tree, www.lovelyasatree.com, which provides data on environmentally sound paper and print technologies; and Nat Hunter is co-founder of digital design group Airside. They are looking to collaborate with others across various creative disciplines to create a body of knowledge and expertise.

The Three Trees homepage states, ‘As creativity is our business, we should be comfortable with the notion of making our design work that bit harder, creatively and for the environment’. That just about sums it up. ‹