FRIDAY FEELS | CONSCIOUS CRAFTING

This year, it is predicted that Black Friday will produce 429,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from product deliveries alone, with 80% of Black Friday usually ending up at landfill shortly after.

We appreciate people wait all year to grab bargains this week, and in a cost-of-living crisis the world over, we understand that many need to make every cent count. But the reality is we still consume too much, too often, and the price paid at the till is usually to the cost of the invisible people in the supply chain or to the planet.

Part of the Grand Pacific set-up plan was to place as much of our production and activities into the local economy for good practice, transparency and reduce negative impacts. We cannot source everything locally but we plan to chip away at it as much as we can until we can be locally self-sufficient.

We cannot ask of others what we cannot deliver ourselves, but we can make worldly savings by thinking twice about what we buy and who we buy it from. The Illawarra is teaming with creatives, start-ups, mom & pop stores, local makers and local markets. So buy local, meet the maker, make a connection, give your purchase a story to tell, share those stories to encourage others.

We do not discount other than our yearly warehouse sample sale, and even then we share that event with other makers, swap meet old surf boards and connect with the faces in our community. Purpose driven provisions, purpose driven good vibes.

Instead of discounting this year we are donating to Support Act and their road crew fund to help our mates in the music industry to get back out there after a tough few years through the pandemic. Music, as well as surfing, is central to what makes the Illawarra so special, so in 2022 that is what we want to sustain.

Stay conscious, stay amped.