Aston Mics proud to support day of action against climate change

This Friday school pupils around the world will participate in a day of action against climate change and adults are being urged to get involved, by teenager Greta Thunberg, whose one-person demonstration outside the Swedish parliament in 2018 was the inspiration from which the School Strike of Climate (also known as ‘Fridays for Future’) has grown to a global scale.

“This is not a single-generation job. It’s humanity’s job... Let’s all join together, with your neighbours, co-workers, friends, family and go out on to the streets to make your voices heard and make this a turning point in our history.” said Greta.

Numerous events across the UK are this year supported by a number of Educational establishments, Trade Unions, Charities and other organisations, with a major rally taking place on Millbank, near the Houses of Parliament, and 1pm being declared national ‘Climate Alarm’ moment, with everyone’s alarms set to sound for one minute.

Aston Microphones are proud to support the initiative, and our staff will be dressing the part on Friday (look out for the photos!), while continuing to examine and build on our own core goals of achieving one of the smallest carbon footprints in the industry.

One small microphone company can’t save the world on its own, but we can secure our own modest green credentials and hope that if every music industry business does the same then we can make a significant collective impact. For that reason, eco-considerations have been at the forefront of Aston’s product development since the company formed in 2015.

For example, our product packaging is designed to be simple and re-useable, using 99% recycled and 100% recyclable materials. We source local materials and components wherever possible - UK suppliers currently make up 70% of our business, and the remainder uses largely sea and road freight - so our shipping supply footprint is minimised.

The products themselves see a departure from traditional microphone design and manufacture, with the tumbled steel chassis on the Origin, Spirit and Starlight microphones requiring none of the chemical processes involved in the paint, powder or other finishes found on the majority of mics. There are, in fact, no chemical processes at all used in the production of Aston mics past the raw component level. This all makes for extremely low-impact manufacturing.

The unique construction of the Aston Halo reflection filter is achieved using 70% recycled plastic bottles, the resultant patented PET felt is extremely lightweight and acoustically efficient, while also environmentally kind.

And, as our ever growing family know very well, our mics are not only up there with the very best in the world in terms of sound performance, but are built to be virtually indestructible, so they’ll last a lifetime of use in the most hardcore professional environments.

To mark the efforts of the world’s campaigners this Friday, CEO James Young has announced an end to printed Aston product manuals, with downloadable electronic files available solely online. Aston have also switched all recyclable foam packaging to card inserts to further reduce print chemical and packaging impact. These measure will also significantly reduce the weight of shipped products.

We will continue to strive to look for new ways to make microphone products more environmentally sound, and we applaud all those companies, large and small, who share our journey.