At Bailey, we try to minimise this where possible.

Wood:

• Using, where possible, locally-sourced FSC-certified wood, and if possible, reclaimed hardwoods.
• Creating as little waste as possible by careful design, cutting out and making our own binding / purfling / kerfed linings, bridge-blanks, blocks and veneers etc from our own off cuts.

Materials and Parts:

• It's a tricky one as most parts are metal + factory-made. We are investigating, and trying to resource to more environmentally-friendly companies. If we can opt for UK-made parts, we do.
• We buy in bulk with little or no packaging and this also reduces the use of transport.

Energy:

• Electric guitars use more power tools in the making - acoustics and jazz archtops use much less. This is one of our biggest on-going expenses as keeping the wood at the night humidity and temperature means using a dehumidifier and heater all year round. We are looking at many ways of reducing our energy use - we already use power-saving devices and gadgets which reduce consumption overall in both workshop and kitchen.
• Low-energy lighting throughout.
• Switching things off!
• Solar panels for all our personal domestic energy use.

We are currently investigating and planning to use solar and wind power to reduce grid electricity consumption, but we plan to go off the grid and generate all our own workshop power in the near future.

General:

• We do our best!
• Using workshop waste to heat domestic/office.
• Rechargeable batteries only -.charged by solar panels
• Residential and general supplies from Wholefood, Co-Op, GreenCity.co.uk reduces packaging
• Only use fair-trade tea/coffee.
• Local organic box scheme for vegetables, fruit and milk (stairorganicsgrowers.com)
• Using recycled / reclaimed / rescued anything where possible!
• We mend and make things ourselves, including tools.
• Recycling, composting, etc.