Responsible Sourcing

Our paint is made from limestone, water, and natural pigments, using fire and air in its production process. We are deeply committed to precisely sourcing these materials, ensuring they are sustainably and responsibly obtained.

Limestone is at the heart of our paint, and is an abundant natural resource on earth sourced from a local Western Australian. We also utilise lime putty, a waste product from limestone quarries that would otherwise be used as landfill. Renewable timber (mill ends and waste) is used for processing limestone, a Co2 neutral process. This process produces no toxic by-products or pollution of waterways. The production process uses non-potable water before the natural pigments are added. 

We only use powder pigments, never industrial tints or colourants. By using and recommending natural pigments, we reduce the consumption of industrially produced pigments that require high energy input. Wherever possible, our colour bases use naturally milled pigments sourced from around the world, including substances from the ground, plants, or minerals, without chemical modification. Nearly all our pigments are of natural origin and are the same as those used by the cosmetics industry for lipsticks and eye shadows. The US-supplied pigments are man-made, produced by blending, heating, and grinding minerals. Our global suppliers—from Australia, Italy, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, as well as Malta and Belgium—adhere to all relevant EU, US, UK, and AU safety standards. We also use natural clays as a thickener and as a colouring agent itself.

We carefully select suppliers who operate responsibly, often opting for family-run businesses. For example, our limestone is quarried by a skilled family-run operation in Western Australia, preserving a traditional craft. Our pigments are sourced from natural clays and oxides and produced by family-owned, small-scale operators in economically disadvantaged rural areas. Ethical considerations also play a vital role, such as sourcing cobalt from ethically run mines or sensitively working with French suppliers of natural ochre deposits to not disrupt small villages, and rehabilitating mining sites once mining has concluded. For us, a healthy product isn’t just about the ecological impacts, but the effects it has on the people and the communities involved in the materials.

Another element of sourcing is down to what we choose to create. There are certain colours or shades we don’t offer in our collection because they can only be produced with pigments we believe are harmful to humans. For instance, we don’t create a fire engine red or canary yellows as they can only be made with Cadmium pigments, which we don’t want to handle ourselves.

Some of our colours do contain a small percentage of Titanium Dioxide, which is classified as a heavy metal containing pigment. However, we can provide a list of colours that are TiO2 free.

Clean Manufacturing

The core of Bauwerk Colour's business is Limewash paint, a carbon-neutral product that absorbs carbon dioxide from the air as it dries. We believe that having a clean, safe, and sustainable product isn't enough—the production process needs to match. We also strive to minimise our environmental impact across all areas of the business. That's why we use 'soft technology' that is greenhouse gas neutral, non-polluting, and utilises abundant and renewable resources. We invest in renewable energy, optimise transportation routes, and implement energy-efficient practices in our manufacturing facilities to minimise our carbon footprint.

Green Energy 

Since we began back in 2000, Bauwerk Colour has operated on 100% green power, starting in Australia and continuing after our move to Germany.  While renewable electrical energy has historically come at a premium compared to conventional sources like coal, we are dedicated to powering our products, offices, warehouses, and production facilities solely with wind, solar, and bioenergy sources. Whilst we aren’t producing our own electrical energy yet, this is firmly on the horizon.

Production Process

You may have heard us talk about our elemental production process using earth, fire, water and air. It may sound too simplified for a modern product, but it’s actually an amazingly efficient and natural circular process. We are still true to the traditional way of lime production and burn our lime with timber. Timber is a renewable resource and any CO2 emitted is also regrown and bound in equal amounts in the regrowth of trees. The timber that is used for the lime burns are off-cuts and waste timber from pruning of trees or when trees need to be felled at the end of their lives.

The advantage of using a natural process is the elimination of industrial chemicals that pollute the environment. In fact, our paint production primarily occurs within an environmentally protected wildlife area. While we make paint, our bees produce honey, birds and bats thrive in the sanctuary, and our newly installed kitchen garden grows just outside the window. Literally all happening on the same site, side by side. It's not just where we work; it's our home too... Learn more about Bauwerk’s Headquarters.

Product Delivery 

Recycled + Recyclable Packaging

As a business with a preservative-free product that operates primarily through mail order, we take our packaging very seriously. We collaborate with expert partners in both the design and development of our paint containers and postage materials to ensure our products stay fresh, maximise space, and use responsibly sourced materials. Additionally, we strive to create packaging that encourages recycling.

We use consumer-recycled materials for all our packaging and continuously look for further improvements. For instance, our paint containers aren’t just grey because it’s our brand colour, it’s a by-product of their post-consumer material. In fact, our containers have the highest post-consumer recycled content available, currently between 30-50%. We also ensure that our packaging is fully recyclable and easy to separate, such as aluminium lids and recyclable plastic containers. Our shipping packaging is made from unbleached recycled cardboard and contains no plastic wrapping fillers or cushioning. In addition, we are part of a recycling scheme in conformity with the governmental requirements. Please see the most recently issued recycling scheme certificate.

We are constantly working with our suppliers to trial new products to improve our packaging environmentally and for the customer’s experience. Our latest trial is a 'Bag in a Box' package which would reduce the need for warehouse storage, minimise the use of plastic in the actual container, extend product shelf life, reduce shipping volume requirements, and decrease the amount of cardboard needed for protective shipping packaging.

Through these efforts, we aim to maintain high standards of sustainability while ensuring our products are delivered safely and efficiently.

Reducing Transportation Emissions

We have consciously opted for a business model where we do not operate a fleet of vehicles for deliveries or pick-ups. Instead, we use courier services that optimise load space and avoid empty return trips to their depots. By delivering all of our orders directly to the customer, many vehicle trips to stores or depots are no longer needed.

We're proud to partner with DHL GoGreen for shipping, which neutralizes the CO₂ output from DHL Express for all air freight. All our air shipments utilize CO₂-neutral aviation fuel. In many urban areas, DHL utilises electric vehicles for deliveries, reducing noise, air pollution, and CO₂ emissions. Learn more.  

Visit our Sustainability section for more.

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