Kim Stark has followed a highly creative yet diverse career path, from child actor to assistant director, masseuse, and now the founder and designer behind Emiti, a range of gorgeous accessories and homewares.

Originally hailing from Western Australia, Kim was a child actor  before going on to work behind the scenes in film and tv. After deciding to pursue acting again, she started her own massage practice to support herself. During this time, she began sewing wheat bags for clients and friends. When they proved to be a hit, she decided to put her other creative skills to use by designing and printing her own fabric to give the eco-friendly products a more unique, personal touch.

Before long, Kim realised this creative outlet was what she kept coming back to and enjoyed the most and so she set about expanding her range  into other products such as handbags, cushions and jewellery.

Sustainable and ethical design and production is central to the Emiti business model, from the use of organic fabrics and low carbon leather in the handbags, through to sourcing recycled plastic bottle inserts for cushions and FSC certified wood for jewellery products. Kim has kindly taken some time to share what she has learnt (and is still learning) along the way.

Emiti cushions

Necklaces from the new Emiti jewellery range

How do you approach sustainability and environmental awareness in your creative practice? 

For me it’s about choices. There are a lot of decisions to be made in a creative business and I always try to choose materials and processes that are environmentally friendly. It’s not that much harder, it just requires a bit more patience and perseverance.

Some examples of what I’m currently doing is using organic cotton/hemp fabrics that I screenprint with water based inks, using recycled card for all my packaging and swing tags, posting everything out in secondhand boxes I source from local businesses, using FSC certified wood, low carbon leather, designing patterns so that there’s almost no wastage of fabric and then composting any fabric and cardboard scraps that later ends up on my vegie patch!

I think all of these choices are important because I don’t want to be just another business producing stuff that other people can buy and then later throw out. If people are going to buy pretty things that make them happy (and make me happy to make!) then I’d much rather they buy products from businesses that actually think about these environmental decisions.

The Florence bag from the South West Collection

What key challenges have you come up against in trying to reduce the environmental impact of your work and how did you overcome them?

The main challenge I’ve come across is the lack of supplies available in Australia for environmentally sustainable products and the increased prices of those supplies. Especially when it comes to fabric – there’s only a few sources of fabric, which limits what the end product will look like. I especially find it limited in terms of colours of fabrics available.

But on the flip side of that sometimes being restricted in what you can design can bring about an end result that works beautifully and wouldn’t have happened in the first place without the restriction. The main reason I chose to screenprint my own organic fabric was because there isn’t that wide choice available and that’s become a large part of what I do, so there’s always a positive!

As more and more consumers choose to buy environmentally friendly products, there’ll be a flow on effect in that more supplies will become available at a lower price.
Are there any particular resources you draw on to learn about issues around sustainability, in particular regarding design and production?

I always find magazines, such as Peppermint, a great resource on what other groups are doing and interesting articles about processes.

I also find talking to different makers through markets and trade fairs a great way to swap knowledge and ideas. Also talking to the businesses that supply your materials as they are usually on top of what’s happening in their particular field. And let’s not forget about our friend Google…

Necklaces from Emiti’s new jewellery range

Is there anything you’d like to do or learn to further increase the environmental sustainability of your work?

I’d love to use more recycled materials in my products, especially in my new jewellery range, and hopefully I will find the time very soon to really do some solid research into what businesses are chucking out and how it can be reused. I love the idea of the creative process being informed by what’s available, you never know what the end result might be!

Some of my future goals are to become carbon neutral and to be in the position to donate a percentage of profits back to environmental causes.

Who are the other creative women doing new or interesting things with a focus on environmental sustainability that you admire or are inspired by?

I really admire what the girls at Harvest are doing. They host amazing craft workshops and have their own range of products made from organic and natural fabrics. The community they’ve built around sustainable craft is a great business model that I hope will soon spread far and wide.

Clutch bag from the South West Collection

What advice would you give to a young woman who hoped to launch their own label with a sustainable focus?
Make sure you leave yourself enough time to do lots of research into every aspect of what you make and where you can source the best materials. Unfortunately there isn’t a magical website that lists all of best places so it can take a bit of detective work!

Make sure you know what your values are and what’s important to you when you start because it’s easy to get pushed into a direction that is maybe easier but isn’t necessarily better, so it’s good to know what your goals are.

But also be aware that when you’re starting out you can’t make your business 100% perfectly environmentally friendly. You have to be realistic about what is achievable at each stage of your business and know that as your business grows you can take those bigger environmental steps.

Phoebe Miller is a Brisbane-bred, Sydney-fled, Melbourne-embedded gal who enjoys making, spruiking, collecting, exploring, telling her friends where to eat and posting photos of doors on instagram. After several years working in corporate marketing and communications, Phoebe followed the urge to explore her creative side. These days she divides her time between her sustainable fashion accessories label, Simply Phoebe, and freelance PR consulting.

At our most recent CWC event, we heard from the group of talented and inspiring women who run Northcity4: an Artist Run Initiative encompassing a shared jewellery and object based design workspace in Brunswick, Melbourne.

In addition to providing a workspace and innovative learning environment, Northcity4 is committed to promoting and supporting the integration of sustainability into all aspects of jewellery and object based practice.

During the talk, we heard from Ali Limb, one of NC4′s founders and Board Members, about the group’s sustainability measures. For those who couldn’t make the event, and those who did and want to know more, I caught up with Ali to find out more about NC4′s impressive approach to sustainability.

What led to your strong focus on sustainability as a group in the development of Northcity4?

From the start, Northcity4 was determined to create a healthy workplace with an environmentally aware approach. Because we were starting from scratch we saw this as a great opportunity to put steps in place to support this vision.

Through Sustainability Victoria we learnt that 80% of the footprint is locked in with the fit-out so this has informed our process from day one. The concept of the space is open plan and wherever possible the materials used are reclaimed such as our big white moveable wall which was kindly donated by ACCA.

Moveable wall donated by ACCA

Jewellery in particular has many negative impacts on the environment due to mining of metal and stones and chemicals used to clean and finish metal. We wanted to start by making ourselves aware of the issues and to gradually change the way we do things with the aim to reduce our environmental impact and potentially inspire and influence others.

What research and background work did you do to develop your sustainability policy and initiatives? 

NC4 has begun a process of mapping the organisations life cycle. The first steps were to understand our potential impact and then begin to develop a policy, which addresses each area of concern. There are many steps needed to reach our ultimate goal but we see this as a journey.

To get started, NC4 signed up for 100% green gas, 25% green electricity (with the aim to increase this steadily), implemented a visible waste system using eco bins, a worm farm to convert our organic waste, plants for air cleaning and a microcline air filter for specific dust and fume extraction.The UBC donated a veggie box so we also grow our own rocket and herbs out the front.

From here we hope to eventually install solar panels, more insulation and begin to build a strong database of ethical suppliers with the plan to influence many of our piers and existing suppliers. We are continuing to research and collate information as we go.

Eco bin waste system at Northcity4

Were there any particularly useful resources you would recommend to other collectives or individuals looking to make their creative practice more environmentally sustainable?

We have been fortunate to receive support and advice from Sustainability Victoria with the initial Life Cycle mapping. NC4 has also signed up for Zero Carbon Moreland through Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd – another great resource.

We also recently signed up to Grow Me The Money, a program run by VECCI designed to help businesses reduce waste and use less resources.

As a jeweler I also often refer to ethical metal-smiths.

Can you tell me a little bit about the “plant pledge” and the reasoning behind it?

When we first started looking at ways to create a green workplace, an obvious option was to introduce plants to help with the air quality and also to create an uplifting environment. Katherine came across this great clip from the TED talks, which inspired us to introduce a plant pledge to our Opening Launch in March.

We had three examples of air cleaning plants and invited people to pledge between $5-$20 towards these plants. We then ordered the plants through CERES and potted them up in pots donated to NC4 or purchased through the tip shop. We are well on our way to greening our space with plants.

Plants purchased with the funds from NC4 plant pledge

Microclene air filter for more specific extraction

I love the sound of your community lunches – how do these contribute to your sustainability focus?

NC4 monthly lunches are an opportunity for the NC4 tenants and board members to invite guests to the studio to share a delicious simple lunch and conversation. The food is all organic and usually purchased at Ceres Saturday market. These lunches often lead to new connections between friends of NC4 and the wider community.

What has been the biggest challenge in addressing sustainability as a collective?

Trying to achieve our goals on a small budget and with limited time is the biggest challenge. We are also working with a large space and an old building; this has presents challenges in regard to insulation and maintaining heat during winter. Our first investment in the building was to insulate the roof with air-cell insulation and install light boxes in the ceiling to give good natural light.

What other projects and opportunities do you have in place to promote sustainability?

As a way of making a more public statement and also creating opportunities for artists working in recycled/reclaimed materials with an environmental message we have a project which involves inviting artists to create and installation on our front window and gate to engage the passing community.

Recent artists involved were Pennie Jagiello and Claire McArdle.

Pennie with her “Speech Bubble” installation in the NC4 front window

Pennie’s Speech Bubble piece (above), made from reclaimed trawling net, plastic bags & plastic milk bottles, addressed the issue of ghost nets and raised our awareness about the marine life that is unintentionally caught in these stray nets.

Big Blue Jellyfish (below) was made from plastic bags often mistaken at sea for jellyfish. Pennie also made us aware of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch a giant garbage dump of 44 million kilos of plastic waste floating in the Pacific Ocean.

“Big Blue Jellyfish” by Pennie Jagiello

For her installation, Claire McArdle used recycled “green” bags. Find out more in Claire’s NC4 guest blog post.

Claire installing her piece at NC4

Claire’s gate adornment

As an individual jeweller who works with precious metals, how are you approaching the desire to make your work more environmentally sustainable?

My jewellery practice has been affected by the research and actions we are taking through NC4. At first the information brought my jewellery to a bit of a standstill, but having begun to work through the issues that have been raised, I am beginning to look at my jewellery differently and finding ways I can reuse materials from previous collections.

I have also set myself the goal to limit myself to work with materials (stones & beads) I have collected over the past 20 years whilst I work toward sourcing my materials via more ethically methods.

Recently Anna Davern (another NC4 Board Member) and I were asked to be involved in an exhibition called Once More With Love. This project involves working with a bag of preloved jewellery and making a piece of contemporary jewellery. The results are great but it was a seriously challenging brief.

Phoebe Miller is a Brisbane-bred, Sydney-fled, Melbourne-embedded gal who enjoys making, spruiking, collecting, exploring, telling her friends where to eat and posting photos of doors on instagram. After several years working in corporate marketing and communications, Phoebe followed the urge to explore her creative side. These days she divides her time between her sustainable fashion accessories label, Simply Phoebe, and freelance PR consulting.