Ecological Initiatives

Ecological Initiatives

What are “Ecological Initiatives?”

This is the summation of everything PhotoEssence Photography and our partners do that benefit the environment. 

PhotoEssence Photography contributes to ecological initiatives either directly as an entity or indirectly through our partners. Our Ecological Partners contribute to initiatives. For example, Climate First Bank enables the installation and development of solar panels through their partners.

Every transaction through PhotoEssence Photography actually enables our partners to make real impacts. We also have other partners that help the business in other ways, such as equipment or software. 

Each division of the company provides monetary support to the business as a whole. We reinvest your purchases back into PhotoEssence Photography and we invest in Ecological Initiatives. The animation below shows this motion. 

The goal of PhotoEssence Photography is not only to become a carbon neutral business entity (meaning we remove more carbon than we use, which is currently good), but to also go beyond that where we enact real measurable change for the better. These can be things such as helping to restore wild areas, remove waste from waterways, and pursue education and research. 

Our Ecological partners!

 

1. Climate First Bancorp

(Climate First Bank + One Ethos)

Initiatives

Solar Power

Carbon Neutral

LEED-certified buildings

Affordable housing projects

1% For The Planet membership

“Climate First Bank is the worlds first FDIC-insured, values-based, digital community founded to combat the climate crisis.”

“Climate First Bank is the worlds first FDIC-insured, values-based, digital community founded to combat the climate crisis.”

One Ethos and Climate First bank work together to bring solar energy to communities (including low income) by financing solar loans. 

Being a carbon neutral business, they have made partnerships, such as with We Are Neutral, to reduce their carbon footprint.

They are part of the Global Alliance for Banking Values (GABV)

Their membership with 1% For The Planet directly donates money towards environmental causes. 

Our banking deposits are used responsibly for good. Unlike other for-profit banks that use their bank deposits for less-than ecological investments, Climate First bank uses our deposits for renewable energies, affordable housing, and many other important for-community investments.  

These images were borrowed from Climate First Bank 2023 Climate Report.

2. Stripe

(Stripe Climate and Frontier)

Initiatives

Direct Air capture

Mineralization

Field weathering

Biomass carbon removal & storage

Ocean alkalinity enhancement

Direct Ocean removal

2% of every purchase goes directly to Stripe Climate

(PayPal purchases excluded)

With Frontier’s extensive and diversified carbon offsetting portfolio, Stripe Climate and PhotoEssence Photography can make a positive environmental impact. 

The image is directly from PhotoEssence’s Stripe Climate Dashboard. 
  • Direct air capture is the process of separating CO₂ out of ambient air via cycling a sorbent or solvent repeatedly through capture and release. The resulting CO₂ stream can then be paired with any type of permanent storage.
  • Biomass carbon removal and storage processes permanently store CO₂ from waste biomass, which naturally capture CO₂ from the atmosphere via photosynthesis. Examples include pyrolysis, gasification, and biomass burial.
  • Field weathering speeds up the natural weathering of alkaline materials with CO₂ and rainwater. The resulting reaction leads to durable storage of CO₂ as bicarbonate.
  • Direct ocean removal approaches extract CO₂ from the ocean (rather than the air), which results in carbon-depleted discharge water that is then able to absorb more CO₂ from the atmosphere. The extracted CO₂ can then be paired with a different types of permanent storage.
  • Ocean alkalinity enhancement describes processes that increase the natural ability of the ocean to draw CO₂ from the atmosphere. By extracting acid or adding alkalinity, additional CO₂ is stored as stable bicarbonate and carbonate in the seawater.
  • Mineralization is the reaction of alkaline minerals, CO₂, and water to form solid carbonate minerals, which present a durable carbon storage.

3. theprintspace

(Creative Hub + Fujifilm)

Initiatives

Green delivery

Carbon neutral end to end

Sustainable packaging and materials

World Land Trust referral program

Wind energy powered

Visit theprintspace Carbon Neutral Creative Hub

theprintspace uses carbon offsetting to make carbon neutral products for PhotoEssence Photography

theprintspace uses carbon offsetting to make carbon neutral products for PhotoEssence Photography

How they offset

  1. Minimize carbon emissions using green couriers and shipping services.
  2. Calculate unavoidable emissions.
  3. Use Gold Standard and WWF guidance to carbon offset.

Sustainable packaging

They use sustainably sourced, recycled, or biodegradable packing. 

theprintshop + Fujifilm on C-type prints (used by PhotoEssence Photography)

“Our c-type prints are printed on Fuji crystal archive paper and processed with Fuji chemistry. Fuji’s production processes operates on exclusively on wind energy and they also generate their own energy with five wind turbines and a large afterburner. They have also pioneered a water purification plant with adjoining companies. Fujifilm adheres to regulation using the S class system that places restrictions on those substances that can and potentially do pose threats to the environment and public health. In recent years there has been an emphasis into the considerations of animal welfare by actively working to engineer different test methods whilst collaborating on research into skin sensitivity. We are aware that the c-type process uses a precious metal, silver as it’s fundamental component to achieve high quality photographic prints. Silver is the raw material used to make the light sensitive emulsion that is suspended on the paper to generate our photographic prints. The silver residue and by-products of the photographic process are valuable raw materials so we extract them and recycle them after the prints have been made.”

Images and text were borrowed from theprintspace.