The Vertebrae philosophy.

Vertebrae is not designed with “planned obsolescence” in mind. Quite the opposite: we opt for a “designed to last ages” philosophy instead. The key to vertebrae is quality. Quality in the design, manufacture and refinement of our products. We know that using the utmost quality materials leads to products which will perform better than the competition.

Not only do our products function better, they’re longer lasting as well.

The environment.

We already know that our most important asset is the natural environment. Even with our many advanced technologies, we are still totally dependent on this planet, its resources and the multitude other organisms that co-inhabit this world with us. We might be at the top of the food chain, but we are still part of a very complex ecosystem. Without that ecosystem, we cannot survive in the long term.

We believe that people should ask two questions before they buy any physical product: “where does it come from?” and “where will it go?”. The idea behind this philosophy, called “cradle to cradle” (or C2C), is to know how damaging towards the environment a product is to produce and how it will affect the environment at the end of its lifetime. Not just our product, but any product.

There’s also a third question we think people should ask manufacturers: “where does your profit go?”. What happens to the money earned from the sale of their products? Is that money put to good use? In other words, who and what exactly are you supporting? Do the owners of a business really care about supporting other ecological movements, or not? Again, not just our product, but any product.

Our sustainability clause:

Unlike most businesses, we don’t strive for profit, we strive for happiness. And more than anything else, seeing nature’s myriad of wonderful creatures makes us happy. We support and donate to the following conservation societies: World Wide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace and The Wilderness Society.

We live on the very edge of the Royal National Park. So when we say that we are committed to sustainability, we really do mean it. As such, we always opt for the more environmentally friendly suppliers. We use environmentally friendly packaging*, processing and transport methods wherever possible.

We try very hard to produce less waste in all aspects of our lives. Above all we embrace minimalism. We don’t just recycle; we reduce waste to begin with. We try to reuse things instead of just throwing them straight in the bin. We minimise energy consumption**. We have not one but two worm farms! We use LED bulbs throughout most of our home/office.

* We’re in the process of creating a totally biodegradeable and compostable packaging, but we need to use up all of our old packaging first, otherwise it’s just being wasted.
** We’re also keen on using solar energy to power our main computer, although that is not quite ready yet.