Understory
Shop the collection
A forested mountain ridge at golden hour

Everyday things,
made to come back.

From the Bottle to the Home Kit, every Understory product is engineered from recycled materials and designed to be refilled, repaired, and eventually returned, so the things you reach for every day give back more than they take.

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The greenest product is the one you already own. Forest canopy from aboveSo we build ours to last a decade, Glass jars of dry goodsrefill them by post in plastic-free pods, and when they’re finally done, we bring them home A handful of dark soiland grow the next one from what’s left. A sapling held in two hands

0 g

Virgin plastic. In anything we’ve shipped since 2021.

18,400 t

CO₂e avoided. By refills replacing single-use bottles.

212 ha

Forest restored. Native woodland, replanted with partner growers.

96%

Back in stock. Of every returned product, remade into new ones.

We measure our footprint from seed to shelf to soil, and publish every number the day it’s audited. The good ones and the bad ones.

  • Ships, not planes.

    Packaging. Plastic-free fibre packs, moved by wind-assisted ocean freight. That cuts shipping carbon by 88% compared with air.

  • Run on sun and wind.

    94%

    Energy. Rooftop solar and community wind power our workshops, matched hour by hour, not just on paper.

  • Aerial view of a forest road winding through dense pines

    Traced to the tree.

    Sourcing. Every fibre and metal is mapped by name to the forest, farm, or smelter it came from, then checked for biodiversity every year.

  • Every claim, footnoted.

    Transparency. Each number links to the meter reading, audit, or invoice behind it. If we can’t prove it, we don’t print it.

  • Rinse, filter, repeat.

    3×

    Water. Rinse water from our filling line is cleaned and reused three times, then returned to the river cleaner than we found it.

  • Built to be fixed.

    10 yrs

    Repair. Ten years of free parts, tools and guides. The lowest-carbon product is always the one you already own.

We didn’t start a company. We started an argument with how things are made.

It began on a beach clean-up in 2019: four hundred bottles in one morning, every one designed to be thrown away. Seven years on, that argument is a supply chain that runs in a circle and plants a native tree for every loop it closes.

Cupped hands holding a fern seedling above the forest floor

Our first restoration plot: 40,000 native saplings and counting.

Design for the comeback. Every product is planned around its return before it is planned around its launch.

Measure everything. If we can’t meter it, we don’t claim it. Instruments over adjectives, every time.

Refuse the throwaway. Repairable by default, refillable by design, and never quietly disposable.

Leave it wilder. Every site we run must leave more living ground behind it each year than the last.

Mara Ellison, founder and head of materials

Five objects, one loop. Each is made from recovered material, built to last for years, and comes home to be remade when you’re done.

A slate-grey aluminium bottle on a pale surface

Built to be refilled.

The Bottle. From $38

Glass jars of dry goods grouped on a white table

Plastic-free refills.

The Refill. From $12 a month

A slatted wooden crate on a black backdrop

One returnable crate.

The Home Kit. From $96

A natural cotton tote bag on a grey surface

Woven from ocean plastic.

The Tote. From $44

A seedling sprouting from a matte black pot

Grows, then returns.

The Sprout Set. From $29

One shell of recovered aluminium, a cap you can swap in seconds, and a free ride home when you’re done. Nothing about it ends in landfill.

A brushed aluminium bottle with a black loop cap on a soft grey backdrop
0%recycled aluminium, smelted with hydropower.
0single-use bottles it replaces over its life.
0%smaller footprint than a new steel bottle.

A straight line ends in landfill. We built the journey as a loop.

A container ship on a still sea at dusk01

We send it once. Flat-packed in plastic-free fibre and moved by ocean, never by air.

A black bottle standing on a rock beside a mountain lake02

You keep it for years. Refill pods arrive by post or bike courier. Parts swap out. The bottle stays.

A plain cardboard box on a white background03

It comes back to us. A prepaid label sends it home, where it’s melted down into the next one.

Worn out, broken, or just unloved? Send it back. We repair what we can, recycle what we can’t, and send nothing to landfill. Free, every time.

Start a return
An open, empty cardboard box ready to be packed

Free pickup · zero landfill

Metered on site, verified by an independent auditor, and never rounded up. These are our 2025 figures.

Offshore wind turbines standing in a calm blue sea

North Sea wind, contracted through 2035

0.0GWh

Renewable energy. Generated on-site from solar and wind.

+38% YoYMethod ↗
0%

Materials recovered. Of returned products, remade into new stock.

Tier 1–3 verifiedMethod ↗
0M L

Water returned. Cleaned and sent back to the river.

Closed loopMethod ↗

“I’ve refilled the same bottle for four years. The only thing I’ve thrown away is the habit.”

Ethan Fox
Customer since 2021

“They showed us the soil data before the sales deck. We signed the supply deal that afternoon.”

Jessica Mercer
Head of sourcing, Loop Materials

“The restoration plot they fund on our land has brought back birds we hadn’t heard in twenty years.”

Marcus Rhodes
Farmer, Northwind Growers

On-site meters, supplier invoices, and an independent audit every year. Each figure is published with its method, and nothing is ever rounded up.

One honest letter a season: what we planted, what we fixed, and what we got wrong.