It’s World Bee Day! This year we’ve teamed up with Katie Carr founder of Tommy and Lottie to bring you some essential information about why we should all be doing everything we can to protect and help Bees thrive in nature.
We interviewed Katie about why saving bees is such an important mission of her brand. Here’s what she had to say:
Tell us why saving bees is such an important cause to support for Tommy and Lottie?
Bees are crucial for our human survival, if they go extinct it could catastrophic for us as they are an important pollinators of crops for global food demand. Einstein said – If bees disappeared off the face of the earth, it is predicted that man would only have four years left to live.
How does your business directly support Bees?
We are very proud to be partnered with the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, part of The Wildlife Trust who are one of the biggest grassroots movement of people in the UK on a mission to restore a third of the UK’s land and seas for nature by 2030. For more than a century TWT have been saving wildlife and wild places, increasing people’s awareness and understanding of the natural world, and deepening people’s relationship with it so we help fund, protect and spread the word about bees and other wildlife. The Wildlife Trust looks after more than 2,300 nature reserves, covering 98,500 hectares, and operate more than 100 visitor and education centres in every part of the UK.
Tell us more about your brand’s mission – why did you set up Tommy and Lottie?
I wanted to create my own business and have the flexibility of working around my two children Tommy and Lottie especially while they were young but it had to have a purpose . I’ve always been passionate about the environment and nature so I wanted to create something that gave back to the world and sustainability was something I was very interested about. When I researched and then started T&L in 2014 no one was really talking about fast fashion, sustainability, plastic waste, waste in general but look at it now! Money is not the key driver to why I do this, making a difference, however small is at the heart of what we do as well as providing our customers with a quality product that will last and has been ethically and sustainably produced, something that is constantly evolving and we are always looking at ways to be more sustainable and ethical in all of our processes. If I can help protect wildlife, educate, build awareness through my business and try to make the world a bit of a better place when I leave then that’s something I can be proud of.
Katie spent her childhood in nature, growing up in the countryside and spent a lot of her time outside exploring. Her parents taught her a lot about wildlife and how important it is to respect it for a healthy environment and for happiness. Tommy & Lottie are a non seasonal, unisex, ethical and sustainable brand specialising in well made, capsule organic cotton clothing, back packs and wall prints all with a wildlife theme. They only use sustainably sourced, organic and oeko tex cottons to make the clothing and recycled materials such as plastic bottles to make the back packs. The range delivers exceptional quality that last and wash well making it easier to reuse and hand down, helping to reduce waste. Using the best quality and environmentally friendly printing methods which include screen print using water based inks or embroidery using organic cotton thread, you will not find any plastic transfers on any of their products.
Purchasing items from the Tommy and Lottie ‘Bee’ range will directly help fund the rewilding of natural spaces via The Wildlife Trusts and they also support the charity Sumatran Orangutan Society via sales from their Orangutan range. Check out their store of beautiful wildlife inspired clothing, bags and prints here.
