Our commitment to people and planet
Climate
- We only buy electricity from 100% renewable sources, meaning that 85% of our stores in the UK and ROI and 26% of our stores in the Netherlands are powered by green energy. We are migrating all contracts over to 100% renewable but are not there yet. We are working towards getting them all on a renewable tariff.
- We’re rolling out LED lighting across our stores, distribution centre and manufacturing site.
- We’ve fitted telematics to our fleet to make sure we’re driving as efficiently as possible.
Waste
- We’re proud to be zero waste to landfill across our Burton manufacturing and distribution centre and we have 100% landfill diversions from our stores in the UK and ROI.
Food
- 2020 – We introduced “too good to waste” scheme to reduce food wastage in our stores. Selected products are sold at a discounted price after their best before date to help reduce waste.
Paper
- 2017 - We removed all plastic from our online deliveries in (except bottle jackets which we continue to search for an alternative)
- 2020 - We made paper receipts optional in our stores, cutting waste by 30%
- We only use FSC certified recycled paper and card across for our online deliveries and own brand products and our brown paper bags in store are made from 100% recycled paper.
Plastic
- 2010 - We banned plastic bags in our stores a whole five years before the UK government introduced the 5p charge
- 2012 - In a bid to reduce the amount of plastics reaching our rivers and oceans, we banned microplastics across our beauty range, six years before the UK-wide ban
- 2019 - Wet wipes ban: Concerned about the number of wet wipes reaching our rivers, oceans, and beaches, we stopped selling them online and in all our stores, replacing them with non-plastic versions.
- 2021 - All our Fruits Nuts and Seeds are now packed in film bags that can be recycled with larger carrier bags, saving 79 tonnes of plastic.
- 2021 - We’re rolling out new packaging for our Vitamins range, which is 20% lighter, made of a minimum 80% recycled plastic and can be easily recycled at home – removing around 179 tonnes of plastic by the end of 2022.
- 2021 - Single Use Sheet Mask ban: we removed single use sheet masks from our stores, offering instead multi-use products.
Water
- We use grey water and rainwater from our Burton manufacturing plant to wash our lorries. The lorry wash uses recycled water and is not connect to the mains, we have a pressure washer in the yard though that is connected to mains.
Charity
- 2021 We’ve raised over £100k to NHS Charities Together, through Pennies, collecting donations from customers when they shop with us online or in store
- We donated £600,000 of products in care packaging to hospitals to support during COVID-19
- We worked with The Felix Project to help offer immunity support to the vulnerable in London – donating over 2000 units of Vitamin D
- We raised over £13,000 in profits from the sale of paper bags for Healthy Hope in 2020 – and £30,000 was donated to Rainbows Hospice in 2021.
- In response to the war in Ukraine we provided over £380,000 of food supplies to the people of Ukraine and also made an initial donation of £100,000 to the Disasters Emergency Committee and donated €50,000 to the Irish Red Cross. We continue our support through in store and online fundraising for ActionAid! And further product donations to NGO’s.