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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
100% NET PLASTIC RECYCLED•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
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1% FOR THE PLANET•
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Impact & Sustainability
Behind the scenes and beyond the product
About
August is on a mission to dismantle period stigma and embrace the diverse experience of all menstruators, regardless of gender or background. By fostering open dialogue and creating safe spaces for conversations about menstruation, we hope to break down taboos and empower individuals to take charge of their own health and well-being. Striving to make sustainable period products more accessible and traceable, we hope to give you the power to make informed decisions about your period care.
When creating your personalized August subscription box, you can choose the products most useful for your flow, select a nonprofit to donate 1% of your purchase to, and opt-in to a 2 or 3-month subscription, which saves on shipping emissions. In addition to offering these impact moments, we continue to show our commitment to sustainability by being a 1% for the Planet member, Climate Neutral certified, and 100% Net Plastic Recycled certified through Plastic Collective.
Being a certified One Percent For the Planet member means committing to donate 1% of our revenue to vetted, sustainability-focused non-profits. This 1% is made up of the contributions from the donation widget you see at checkout (when GRID Alternatives or The Surfrider Foundation are selected) and by purchasing credits from our Climate Neutral partners (the Zhangjiakou Landfill Gas Power Generation Project and Clinton Landfill Gas Collection and Combustion Project).
Click here to learn more about how your 1% contribution at checkout makes an impact, and keep reading to learn more about our Climate Neutral partners.
To become a Climate Neutral Certified brand, we worked with Climate Neutral to calculate and offset our carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, from production to delivery. By partnering with Climate Neutral, we actively join their global goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
August acknowledges the limitations of the current US landfill infrastructure. Most of our trash ends up in anaerobic landfills (void of oxygen), and since degradation requires exposure to oxygen, not even a carrot can fully break down.
We are proud to support two highly vetted offset initiatives focused on capturing harmful methane gas from landfills and turning it into renewable natural gas, which is used to generate electricity.
To date, we have purchased 1,936 offsets between the following two projects:
- Clinton Landfill Gas Collection and Combustion Project (1661 offsets)
- Zhangjiakou Landfill Gas Power Generation Project (275 offsets)
The offsets are weighted more towards the US project since our operations and the majority of our community are based here. The remainder of our offsets are making an impact in China, the country where our pads and liners are manufactured.
Carbon offsetting is just the first step of many while we wait for more municipalities and jurisdictions to continue investing in the research and development of aerobic landfills as well as contribute to a more sustainable future. In addition, we are committed to two realistic action plans to reduce our footprint.
By the end of 2024, we will:
- Reduce zone 7+ shipments (shipments over 1400+ miles) by 80% within our US distribution, which will minimize downstream shipping emissions
- Reduce the manufacturing of our 4-count products (our smallest count size) by 95% to reduce raw materials and packaging waste
Please view here for more details.
Since we know that purchasing carbon offsets doesn’t give us the license to be careless with our carbon footprint, we will continue to make deliberate efforts at each level of production to ensure we are limiting carbon emissions wherever possible. Here are ways we reduce our carbon footprint:
- Use organic cotton to abate carbon emissions associated with chemical production and application
- Provide reduced shipping options for subscribers to receive two or three months of product at one time
- Offer bigger packaging sizes to reduce packaging waste
- Only ship full containers of product by boat instead of by plane when possible
- Ship from a local fulfillment center instead of directly from manufacturers
As of January 1st, 2023, August is certified 100% Net Plastic Recycled through our partnership with Plastic Collective. This means that for every purchase you make, and to compensate for our projected plastic footprint this year of 22 tons, we invested in credits that equate to the collection and recycling of the same amount of ocean-bound plastic.
Plastic credits help address plastic waste by allowing companies to invest in projects that collect and recycle an equivalent amount of plastic, offsetting the plastic footprint they generate. They work similarly to carbon credits, which you might have heard of in the context of greenhouse gas emissions.
We worked with Plastic Collective to estimate our plastic footprint and identify an organization to support the removal of an equivalent quantity of plastic from the environment.
Here's how it worked:
- We projected how much plastic we would use in our products and packaging to establish our plastic footprint and estimated plastic leakage.
- Plastic Collective connected us with SEArcular by Greencore, who collected and recycled an equivalent quantity of plastic to that contained in the products we sell and their packaging in exchange for funding we provide them.
- The funds generated from these transactions expand recycling activities, build recycling infrastructure, and support other initiatives that address plastic waste.
More about The SEArcular initiative by Greencore: SEArcular is a community-driven plastic waste collection and recycling project in Gresik, Surabaya, Indonesia. Launched in 2018, this project aims to combat plastic pollution in coastal areas.
August is excited to be partnering with SEArcular for the following reasons:
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Community-focused values: SEArcular empowers local coastal communities by providing them with training, employment opportunities, and incentivized pricing for the plastic waste they gather.
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Advanced recycling capabilities: The project collects LDPE, HDPE, PP, PET, PVC, PA, PC, and PS, and specifically focuses on managing the proper disposal of the most challenging plastic types to recycle. It was important for us to find an initiative that is able to recycle plastic types we use, since our products and packaging use LDPE, HDPE, PP, and PVC, in addition to SAP, PLA, and PBAT.
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OBP (ocean-bound plastic) certification: Greencore proudly holds the distinction of being the first certified OBP (ocean-bound plastic) recycler in Indonesia. The project's outputs consist of flakes and pellets, which customers then utilize to produce a wide range of recycled plastic products, including electronic components, luggage items, and reusable poly bags.
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Growth ambitions: The SEArcular initiative aims to collect an average of 7,579 tons of plastic waste annually over the next 8 years. This significant quantity of plastic would otherwise remain in the environment, be disposed of through open burning, or end up in landfills.
Our longer term goals are to reduce our overall plastic footprint and make our plastic more circular. Plastic credits will be used to address our footprint for the time being and we will be reassessing the credits needed every year. Along with annual reporting, we will continue to explore strategies to reduce our plastic waste. Current areas we are diving into:
- Reducing the amount of plastic used in our current product selection
- Exploring new products that would be plastic-free
- Finding alternatives for our merch packaging
Learn more about our partnership with Plastic Collective here
Our Commitments
We integrate sustainability into everything we do — from vetting new suppliers and reducing and offsetting our carbon footprint to using more sustainable materials wherever possible.
Beyond our product offerings, we commit to financially supporting sustainability initiatives. August is a certified One Percent For the Planet Member (1% of our revenue is committed to sustainability-focused non-profits), Climate Neutral certified (our carbon footprint is offset through landfill gas collection and combustion projects), and 100% Net Plastic Recycled certified (we offset our total plastic footprint through collection and recycling initiatives via Plastic Collective).
NMS’s mission is to decrease uterine care and menstrual health disparities in underserved communities by eradicating societal stigmas and propagating resources and scientifically based information.
The Surfrider Foundation is dedicated to the protection of our ocean. And they do all of this by providing education and organizing community beach clean-ups to physically remove plastic from our beaches.
Point of Pride is all about increasing access to lifesaving gender-affirming care. From surgery funds to HRT access, to education about transgender health to free chest binders and femme shapewear – Point of Pride is there for their community.
GRID Alternatives firmly believes that clean electricity should be available to everyone for FREE. They make solar PV technology practical and accessible for low-income communities, while simultaneously providing pathways to clean energy jobs.
This project collects landfill gas (methane) and uses it for electricity generation for the North China Power Grid. The annual emission reduction is expected to be 100,000 tons.
This project captures and destroys methane via combustion engines and sells the generated electricity to the local grid.
SEArcular is a certified OBP (Ocean-bound plastic) community-based plastic waste collection and recycling project that empowers coastal communities and focuses on hard-to-recycle plastics.
Visibility into our supply chain + ingredients
We believe that how our products are made shouldn’t be a scary dark secret.
Sourcing sustainable materials from ethical manufacturers is essential to us. For every stride we make in our period advocacy, we will be conscious of the footprints we are leaving behind.
Our product journey begins in Turkey with our suppliers that source from farms in Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. When we learned that forced labor and harmful farming methods exist in the nine primary countries making 65% of the world's cotton, we searched to find suppliers that grow pesticide-free, harmful chemical-free, fragrance-free, hypoallergenic, and ethically sourced cotton. Once our cotton is harvested and processed, it hops on a ship to Germany (to be turned into tampons) and to China (to be turned into pads and liners)!
Our pads, made with 100% certified organic cotton top sheets and BPI-certified compostable wrappers, are made by our trusted manufacturing partner based in Jiangmen, Guangdong City, China. Our manufacturer makes sustainable products with in-line inspections and yearly audits to ensure that the factory runs smoothly, your products are top quality, and their employees are happy! Before locking in our partnership, we did our due diligence by partnering with Intertek to run a second round of checks to ensure the factories were up to our high ethical and environmental standards.
August tampons are made from 100% certified organic cotton and fitted with BPA-free plastic long-applicators. Our manufacturing partner, based in Saxony, Germany, stood out to us because they went above and beyond the regular certifications of their competitors! With an enforced code of ethics, annual sustainability reports, and an official commitment to the UK 2015 Modern Slavery Act, we proudly stand by a manufacturer that wears their values on their sleeve!
Our products travel by boat, when possible, from around the world and meet at our fulfillment center in Middletown, Pennsylvania. Instead of each individual order making a solo trip across the Atlantic, we use a fulfillment center as our home base in the USA. By shipping full containers to Pennsylvania and sending out your orders from there, we keep our carbon footprint, prices, and shipment time low!
Upcoming improvements to our supply chain
Sunsetting our 4-count pads to reduce the amount of packaging that we produce
Reducing the amount of plastic that our core products currently have
Offering bicoastal shipping by the end of 2024
Have ideas on how we can be more sustainable or create a more significant impact?
Let us know on The Inner Cycle. Be a part of a community that believes in reimagining the period experience to be more empowering and inclusive!