Brand Spotlight: Karst

You crack open a new notebook and flip to the first page. There’s something euphoric about writing down your first word, the excitement of new thoughts flowing through the ink of your pen. From inspirational notes to jotting down a few thoughts, Karst goes beyond being your average notebook. It’s about shaping the future, taking care of tomorrow and gifting sustainability.

Karst, an Australian founded company, is a responsibly sourced, B Corp certified company that started by asking “why.” Why does paper need to be made out of trees? Why can't journals be waterproof? Why are people still using paper-making practices that were cutting-edge in the 18th century? Asking the question “why?” made the creators of Karst think of intention and how action can shape the future. What we do today matters.

To make one ton of regular pulp paper it requires 18 large trees, 2,770 litres of water and an immense amount of energy to produce. Recycling regular pulp paper is also limited to the number of cycles, 7 times to be exact, and requires virgin pulp fibres each time it’s recycled. This makes the pulp and paper industry the third largest industrial polluter for air, water, and land in the United States.

So what is Karst's solution?

Karst is 100% tree-free. Just because paper was always made from the pulp of wood, doesn’t mean it always has to be. The functionality of the product should always outrank form. Karst created paper the way the 21st century should be with 80-90% calcium carbonate, one of the world’s most abundant substances.

What’s the process?

They take dust and make paper. Let that sink in for a second. They combine calcium carbonate with resin, add heat and pressure to create something new. A velvet writing surface. Impossibly smooth. Impervious to liquid. Infinitely stronger. All from dust. They understood that making a more sustainable product could also mean making it more durable which led to a more smooth and waterproof paper product. What exactly is calcium carbonate? It is repurposed construction waste. The process focuses on eliminating the waste that is unavoidable in the traditional paper making process.

Excess defines the modern world. It doesn’t define Karst. Every factory creates waste. End Cuts and damaged batches rot away on the factory floor. At Karst, they are able to recycle scraps in-house. They are modern in everything they do. Yesterday’s leftovers become today’s paper.

What does it mean to be sustainable to Karst?

Karst takes a Cradle to Cradle® certified, biometric approach to product and system design: considering the full life-cycle of a product, and its enduring impact on the ecosystem it lives in. Recyclable, photodegradable, and compost