A good honest living!

Working from home is great, I'd highly recommend it. When we first stumbled across possibility of making a home based living, we wanted not only to minimise the impact of work to our lifestyle, we wanted something that wouldn't impact badly on the world around us too. We were actively seeking our own small business so we could dictate our own work conditions, ethics, hours etc. Our reality is we need to earn a living, not to accumulate wealth but to live comfortably and honestly. With Mongrel Socks we found our niche! Ten years on, we haven't looked back. Starting our business from scratch was a challenge! But it was great to have ultimate control. Early on we made many mistakes, but learnt(sometimes painfully) from each one. One thing we did learn early was, that many decisions we make impact far wider than just us. Particularly our work practices. We have tried to always reduce waste in both materials and time, we recycle as much as we can. We re-use the majority of our packaging materials. We use natural lighting and drying processes. Minimise vehicle movements, and run LPG in our delivery van. As business owners we know we need to keep our costs down, and we have found that with care, we have been not only able to reduce the impact that our business has on our local environment but this has also kept our costs down. Yay! One thing we are very proud of is our tree planting program, we have planted upwards of 200 multi species endemic trees on our 9 acre property, and will continue until we can't fit any more. This is our small contribution to minimising the impact of our carbon footprint on our local environment. Our property is located on the outskirts of the city, backing on to bushland, the urban sprawl is ever encroaching. If in some small way we can foster an environment that is a safe haven to the many types of native animals we have here in Tasmania, when their natural habitat is not under threat from us or any thing we do in their backyard, we'll consider that an environmental job well done!