Black Friday. The busiest time of the year in retail and one that has become synonymous with hyper discounting sales, overconsumption and mindless waste. It’s global impact sees environmental damage equivalent to the carbon emission of 4,000 return flights from London to New York. And 2020 is set to be the biggest year of them all.

We need to break this cycle...and turn this day into our way of giving something positive back to Mother Nature.

As a brand with sustainability at our core, Black Friday goes against everything we stand for and as you know we have never, and will never, go on sale. Instead, as of Friday 27th November we will be extending our partnership with TreeSisters to include all our products. And for every purchase you make, we will plant 5 trees. This isn’t just for the ‘Cyber weekend’, this is an ongoing commitment not just a Black Friday marketing tool.

Why Plant Trees?

We looked at many positive offering to launch on Black Friday, including donating money to charity. However we kept coming back to trees. They are the lungs of our planet and play a crucial role in our fight against climate change.

They are home to over 70% of the world's animal populations, and more than 25% of our medicine originates from them. Yet every minute we lose the equivalent of 60 football pitches of forest to deforestation.

Reforestation is one of the recognised solutions to reduce carbon and we want to be part of that solution. So we thought the best thing we could do was extend our existing partnership with TreeSisters and make an even greater impact.

Who are TreeSisters?

Female-led, TreeSisters is a non-profit organisation that plant trees across eight diverse ecosystems along the tropical belt, from the ancient cloud forest in Northeast India to the coastal mangrove forests in Madagascar.

Having planted 15 million trees to date, they envision a world where it’s commonplace to protect and restore.

Learn more about why we have partnered with TreeSisters here and be sure to watch their powerful video.

Visit the TreeSisters website.

Why don’t we participate in traditional Black Friday?

Part of our mission at Riley Studio is to educate our consumers about mindful consumption. There is no better time to think about this then the holiday season. We believe that Black Friday's discount culture promotes mindless consumption and leads to impulse buys, which won't hold our affection for the test of time. We want to encourage buying less, but buying better and cherishing your items for years to come.

We have worked hard to price our products fairly from the start, making sure we pay our supply chain the right amount, whilst making. To learn more about the history behind Black Friday, and why we don’t participate, head to our Journal article here.

To date, we have planted 325 trees with TreeSisters with our Project Earth collaboration. We look forward to planting many more!