Sustainability

We believe sustainability is something a company lives quietly, in the way it thinks, designs and makes. At Anand Prakash, it has been part of our work from the beginning.

The founder spent much of his childhood in the hills of Mussoorie, schooled at Wynberg Allen, among mountains, forests and changing seasons. That closeness to nature shaped the instinct long before there was a language for it. It taught him to value materials, to avoid waste where he could, and to see even a small piece of paper or wood as something with life still left in it.

At Anand Prakash, this thinking has become part of the way the house works. We try to use recycled paper, handmade paper, carefully chosen materials and packaging that is lighter, reusable or recyclable. Leftover paper from our fabrication process is saved and turned into notepads, cards, labels and inserts. What may have been discarded becomes part of the experience of receiving an Anand Prakash object.

Luxury packaging is not always easy to make responsibly. It has to protect the object, feel beautiful and carry the dignity of the brand. Over the years, we have made conscious choices to use recycled paper, paper-based wraps, upcycled wood boxes and materials that can be kept or reused.

Our way of making
We make in small batches, by hand, in India. Most of what we produce is finished by a person rather than a machine, and the quantities are small enough for us to understand each run closely.

This slower way of working lets us choose materials with care and waste less than large-scale production often allows.

Materials we return to
Almost everything we make comes back to a few materials: paper, brass, textiles and wood. We choose them for how they age, where they come from, how they feel in the hand, and what becomes of them when their first life ends.

Paper. Our handmade paper is made from recycled cotton rag, much of it from textile offcuts, giving discarded fibres a second life as journals, boxes, cards and stationery. For our finer writing papers we use mill-made sheets from sources that work with chlorine-free pulp and certified forests. Handmade paper carries natural variation in shade, weight and texture. That difference is not a flaw to correct. It is the signature of the hand.

Brass. Brass is one of the most enduring materials we work with. It does not wear out easily. It deepens, darkens and gathers character with age. A brass object is made to last for many years, and at the end of its life, the material can be melted and made again.

Textiles. The cloth we bind with draws on India's living textile traditions, including indigo, ikat, kantha, bandhani, cotton and silk. These materials carry the texture of the places and hands they come from. They give each object a surface, character and variation that cannot be manufactured into sameness.

Wood. Where we use wood, we try first to work with what already exists. Some of our packaging trays have been made from timber bought from scrap dealers, including crating that once protected imported machinery and may otherwise have been discarded. We gave it a second purpose instead.

Picture above: Wooden trays for packaging made from discarded wood sourced from scrap dealers. The wood was originally used to package heavy machinery that was imported into India.

Reuse within the studio
At our fabrication unit, we keep our offcuts rather than discarding them. Paper cuttings and leftover material become gift tags, notepads, envelopes, coasters and small inserts, often sent as complimentary pieces with online orders.

The waste of one object becomes the small pleasure tucked alongside another. We keep finding new ways to put our own leftovers back to use.

Picture above: Gift tags made from wastepaper generated at our fabrication unit

Packaging with restraint
Much of our product packaging is paper-based and designed to be recyclable. We use plastic only where it is needed to protect an object from dust, moisture or damage, and we continue to reduce it wherever we can do so without putting the product at risk.

For shipping, we have moved away from plastic bubble wrap across most of our boxes, replacing it with paper-based honeycomb wrap where suitable. Our boxes are sealed lightly, so they can be opened cleanly and used again to store or send something onward.

What we are still working on
We would rather tell you what we have not solved than pretend we have arrived.

Sustainability is a direction, not a finished state. There are still parts of it we are working through: protective materials we use for safety in transit, materials that travel further than we would like, and processes where better alternatives are still being tested.

For us, sustainability is not only about what something is made from. It is also about whether an object deserves to be made at all. Does it last? Does it age well? Does someone want to keep it after the moment of purchase has passed?

At Anand Prakash, we are still learning, still making choices one object at a time. The intention remains the same: to make things with care, with restraint and with respect for the material, the maker and the person who will keep them.