Sustainability at Moncasso

How we build things to last, and where they come from.

We didn't set out to build an eco-friendly wall art brand. We set out to make wall art worth keeping for a lifetime.

It turns out the two aren't as separate as they sound. A print built to genuinely last, rather than one that just claims to, means fewer reprints, fewer replacements, and less shipped halfway round the world for materials you could get closer to home. That's most of what's on this page: not a mission statement, just where things come from, how they're made, and what that actually means for the footprint of a single piece.

Made Close to Home

UK orders use UK-sourced wood. Frames for European orders are made using pinewood sourced from Northern Italy and Eastern Europe. Frames for US orders use American pine. Most of our orders are also made and shipped within the same region they're ordered in, so the distance between workshop and doorstep stays short, and your frame doesn't have to travel as far to reach you.

Most furniture crosses oceans to get here. Yours didn't.

Pine also grows faster than most woods used in framing, so the forests it comes from recover more quickly. Our frames are built from small pieces of pinewood joined together, rather than one long plank, since a single long piece is more likely to bend over time. Every piece now arrives in a standard length, so our workshop can plan each day's cutting with very little left over.

"Pretty sturdy pinewood so they will last years."
— Jack B. Verified customer review.

Built to Last

Our canvas prints use UV-cured ink, the same technology used for outdoor signage, tested to resist fading well beyond anything a print hanging indoors will ever face. Rated for over 200 years of colour life, and we consider that the most sustainable thing we can sell: archival, museum-grade prints that don't need replacing.

The most sustainable purchase is usually the one you only have to make once.

Designed to Waste Less

Every piece is checked four times before it leaves our workshop, at printing, cutting, framing, and packing, rather than once at the end. Catching a fault early means fewer reprints and fewer replacements shipped out to fix a mistake that should not have happened in the first place.

"Beautiful print and frame! Sturdy and substantial materials."
— Debra T. Verified customer review.

A Dent Needn't Mean a Replacement

A light spray of water on the back of a dented canvas, left flat for a day, smooths it out in almost every case. If you'd rather not, just let us know and we'll arrange a replacement, no hassle.

Less Plastic in Every Box

Every box is cardboard, sealed with kraft paper tape rather than plastic. Unframed prints and gallery-wrapped canvases travel with crushed paper padding, recyclable packaging from end to end. Some larger framed pieces still travel with a strip of bubble wrap for protection, we haven't found a better option yet for those. It's better than risking a damaged frame arriving, which just means more waste in the end.

"I appreciated the eco-friendly packaging the poster arrived in."
— Martha D. Verified customer review

"The packaging was great, secure without materials that could have scratched the frame, unlike some other vendors I've bought from."
— Michael B. Verified customer review

A Few Direct Questions

Is Moncasso eco-friendly?

Regional timber sourcing, a cutting process designed to minimise waste, prints built to last centuries rather than years, and cardboard-and-paper packaging with one limited exception. See above for the detail.

Is Moncasso sustainable?

As sustainable as a made-to-order product can reasonably be: regional timber, prints designed to outlast fast furniture and fast-changing home trends, waste-minimising cutting, and packaging that's mostly cardboard and paper. We don't claim to be carbon neutral, every choice above is simply designed to keep our environmental impact as small as it can be for what we make.

How long do Moncasso canvas prints last?

Rated for over 200 years of colour life. The inks are UV-cured and tested to outdoor-signage durability standards.

Is Moncasso's packaging recyclable?

Yes, cardboard and kraft paper throughout, aside from bubble wrap on some larger framed pieces.

For how every print is checked before it reaches you, see our Quality Promise page.