We will not be holding a summer sale this year

We will not be holding a summer sale this year. On the contrary, we’ll have to adapt some of our prices upwards.

This school poster from the ‘Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij’ comes from the archives of @rotor_brussels. It depicts the oil industry in the most poetic way imaginable: as a collaboration transcending the ages between, on the one hand, the biogeological forces and, on the other, modern extraction technologies. In fact, a more accurate representation of this sector would also include gunboats and bombed-out neighbourhoods, illustrating the attacks that Western powers have been waging (or supporting) for over a century in oil-producing regions – and particularly in the Middle East. This repeated pattern aimed at keeping the oil flow does not only entails an immense human cost, but also plunges a large part of global society into crisis each time. It goes without saying that we wish to see the influence of the military-fossil fuel complex decline radically and rapidly.

And this is also one of the reasons behind our enthusiasm for the work we do. In our view, massively diverting construction practices towards preservation and reuse is needed if we are serious about putting the brakes on the production of materials with a high carbon footprint.

With reuse activities being low-carbon, Rotor DC is less affected by oil prices than other segments of the market. This has enabled us to keep most of our prices unchanged over the last few months. However, we are not immune to indirect effects: inflation and rising costs are also affecting our cooperative. We are, after all, entangled in a wider economy that still heavily relies on oil (and other fossil fuels).

For these reasons, we will not be holding a summer sale this year. On the contrary, we will need to increase the prices of several products in order to continue covering our costs. We will give more updates on this topic soon.