Sustainability in stationery

All of our products are proudly made in the USA

Everything in our line is produced in the USA. All of our cards are printed locally and our envelopes are sourced from a supplier in San Diego—this means less energy and shipping to get everything to the studio for assembly.

We keep it local whenever possible

Most gift bags are made overseas. Ours aren't. From the beginning, sourcing locally has been a deliberate part of how The Noble Paperie operates. So when we decided to add luxury gift bags to the line, finding the right vendor mattered, and when we discovered our bag vendor was located within 5 miles of our home studio, it was an easy yes. Every Noble Paperie luxury gift bag is designed, printed, and assembled right here in San Diego.

Our envelope supplier is also a San Diego small business. Our printer is in Glendale, California. And our packaging supplier is based in Petaluma, California… not quite local, but still right here in our home state.

We make these choices intentionally, because keeping production close to home is better for our local economy and better for the planet. The less distance our products travel to reach the studio, the smaller our footprint. We could source cheaper. We choose not to.

Sustainability is built in to our paper

Our paper products and marketing materials are all printed on Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certified stocks, using environmentally friendly soy-based inks. SFI certification ensures that products come from forests that are managed to protect water quality, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, species at risk, and forests with exceptional conservation value.

Earth-conscious cards for composting + recycling

All greeting cards and envelopes are fully compostable. All envelopes are made of 100% recycled kraft paper and since 2021, every card is packaged in a fully recyclable cello sleeve.

Moving to plastic free

Currently all of our cards are packaged in plastic cell0 sleeves when they are shipped directly to the consumer. For retail and wholesale orders, if you would prefer to have your order ship plastic-free (without the use of cello sleeves) we can definitely accommodate this request. Please send an email with the subject line “Plastic Free” and we can accommodate this before shipping.

Our goal is to move away from cello sleeves entirely, so that even our use of recyclable plastic is minimal or nonexistent. The current industry standard is to include cards with a cello sleeve, and while we are disruptors in so many parts of the stationery industry, we feel that we need to let the industry move before we can fully make this shift within our business. We are still searching for an alternative to stick our cards and envelopes together that doesn’t rip our paper, and when we find it we will make the switch to zero plastic. We are hoping this is not too far in the future!

Thoughtful shipping practices

For wholesale orders, we reuse and repurpose boxes whenever possible, wrap products in tissue paper, and use recyclable crinkle paper as cushioning. Single retail card orders ship in a simple paper envelope — no excess packaging.

For larger retail orders, we currently use branded bubble mailers. They're plastic, and we know it. We're actively researching better alternatives — compostable and recycled-content mailers that still protect our products reliably in transit. When we find the right solution, we'll make the switch.

Catalogs designed to last

We committed to digital-only catalogs for several years as part of our sustainability practice. As our wholesale business has grown to include trade shows, we now produce a limited print run of catalogs where industry standards make it necessary. We don't take that lightly; our catalogs are intentionally designed to span multiple years, with single page inserts for new products, so that the initial print goes as far as possible.