Corozo is one of the most sustainable, raw materials used in button production.

It’s also known as vegetal ivory due to it’s high durability and is also biodegradable. Corozo also looks very similar to real ivory however no elephants are harmed in the production of Corozo buttons.

Corozo or tagua nuts are the produce from the tagua tree, grown in South America. The palm tree produces around 1800 nuts a year so yields more than enough for thousands of Corozo buttons to be made.

Being a renewable resource, no trees are cut down, which helps the rainforest flourish. The nuts ‘fall’ from the trees naturally when ripe so there is no human harvesting meaning the tree will continue to grow and produce nuts for many, many years.

According to the Commercial branch of the Foreign Relations Ministry, the Tagua industry supports 30,000 families in Ecuador. Most importantly, it can generate up to five times the income of animal farming, which requires deforestation, so will help sustain the rainforest in all it’s natural beauty. This shows that money can grow on trees…kind of!