Sustainability


SUSTAINABILITY at AK VIBES

We realise you’d like to ensure your crystal and wellness purchases support ethical and sustainable practices, which don’t cost the Earth.

The planet, its people, your environmental impact and the intentions of those who you rehome crystals from are as important to us as they are to you.

Just like a Clear Quartz, amplifying its spaces, we believe our transparency
is what will amplify your trust in us and our service.

Here’s what we are devoting our attention to, regarding sustainability
and ethical practices.


OUR CRYSTAL-SOURCING PRACTICES

Follow our journey on Instagram to see the behind the scenes of our crystal-sourcing trips straight from source or at trusted geologists and gemmologists. We love to dig out our gear and be set free for days, finding gorgeous specimens for you to admire and purchase at our London store.

When sourcing free-handily, we never mine crystals from sites which are overly-exploited or in areas of conservation.

Most of our crystals are hand-selected by us, whether on self-managed trips in our van or while visiting our trusted suppliers with whom we create a strong relationship.

It’s crucial to us and the geologists and gemmologists that we work with, that our practices and values align, so we do our best to communicate and ensure there is no child-labour involved in our supply chain. We also ensure to meet them in person, get to know the company and values, and never order crystals without those checks.

We are in the process of setting up our own facility in Turkey, which will allow us to source, monitor and provide you with high quality crystals from a place we inspect regularly.

All of our crystals are authentic, unless stated. Read more about our crystals’ authenticity.


OUR PACKAGING

Where possible, we take every step to use as little plastic as possible. Your order is packaged in brown paper with paper filler to protect your items from damage in transit.

We use cardboard boxes and paper envelopes, some of which may be padded with bubble wrap. However, we are working on minimising our carbon footprint, and are in the process of finding more sustainable options.

We still use small plastic pouches for crystal chips and some of our most fragile specimens may be protected by bubble wrap, which we trust you could reuse where possible for another purpose.

On your next visit to our AK Vibes London store, don’t hesitate to bring back your brown paper packaging, which protected your previous purchase with us. We’d be more than happy to reuse it on your visit. Let’s do this, team!


SOURCING PALO SANTO

Due to concerns over the loss of habitats which comes with unsustainable sourcing of Palo Santo, we’ve chosen to supply our Palo Santo from Peru. By the country’s law, Palo Santo may strictly be collected from branches on the forest floor, which broke off naturally.

That means, you can purchase your Palo Santo with us, knowing it is not harming the natural environment.


OUR USE OF PALO SANTO AND WHITE SAGE

We sell Palo Santo and White Sage alongside other incense. We use them to cleanse our store to ensure your crystals’ energy remains as pristine as possible before shipping.

We realise many individuals might find burning White Sage and Palo Santo as culturally inappropriate. We would like to ensure you that we have the best intentions when using both practices, and are committed to spreading awareness of the practice’s beauty, while educating our community of the origins of both.

AK Vibes values your opinion and believes sustainable sourcing and intention is what’s most important if choosing to use Palo Santo and White Sage.


GIVING BACK

Currently, we focus on giving back to the planet by occasionally planting trees on sites where we’ve taken from mother Earth. We intend to transform this ritual to a much larger scale in the future.

We encourage you to bring back packaging from your previous shopping trips to AK Vibes, in order for us to reuse them on your purchase.


OUR TEAM

It is our team, collectively, which makes up your entire experience of AK Vibes! Realising that, we take responsibility in ensuring our team members are recognised for their work through empowerment, team-building exercises, rewards and career prospects.

All of our staff is trained and trusted to act on intuition, share their ideas and be treated with respect, in a flat hierarchy, which allows them to bloom into their full potential.


FUTURE VISION

What can you expect from us in the future? While we prefer to act before we speak, you can be assured we have much more in the works.

We aim to make crystals mainstream, empowering each individual in the process. Will you join us?