Environmental Impact - Our Catalogue
Every business has an impact on the environment, even the greenest and most eco-friendly. We understand this, which is why we assess the impact of everything we do and try to minimise it as much as possible.
Our catalogue
We understand the concerns you may have when receiving a catalogue in the post and the possible environmental impact from this if you do not purchase from it. As our catalogues are made from recycled paper, no trees are cut down to make our catalogues. The cover is 140gsm woodfree uncoated FSC certified paper and the text on 65gsm Ultralux sky and 100% recycled. The production of the catalogue uses print technology that accords to the ISO14001 environmental standard. Our catalogue is of course mailed without a plastic outer bag that you may see on many other catalogues.
Why do we send a catalogue?
As an online business you may wonder why we need to produce a catalogue. We are committed to providing a full range of ethical products and supporting small artisan producers through our gift selection and fair trade homeware goods. These kind of products traditionally sell much better through a catalogue which gives customers the chance to relax and browse through at their leisure.
As our website covers the range of a full department store, with eco cleaning and grocery categories, it is hard to be able to promote these kind of products through the website, competing for space with thousands of more everyday items.
With a catalogue we are able to highlight products from around the world and give them the focus they deserve. You will find much less of a focus on everyday items in the catalogue so we can give more space to gifts, fashion and homeware and support the wonderful businesses who produce them.
If you would prefer not to receive future catalogues please contact us or call us on 0333 400 0464, You can also change your communication preferences on the My Preferences page.
Please recycle your catalogue
Our catalogue is fully recyclable so when you have finished with this catalogue please put it with your recycling instead of in the bin (we are sure you wouldn’t do this!), or better still, why not pass it to a friend or neighbour?
Your order & delivery
We package all orders in the most eco-friendly way possible. Firstly we keep and store all suitable boxes from our suppliers when they send us stock. Where we can we will reuse these boxes to package your order in, in addition to this, if we receive products from suppliers in packs of 6 and a customer orders 6 of that item we will keep the products in the original pack and send them out in it within the main parcel. Doing this protects the items better (with the box being specifically designed for them) and so reduces the total amount of packaging we use.
We have worked hard and extensively tested various packaging materials to find the perfect range of packing materials which can adequately protect your products on their journey to you whilst having the lowest possible impact on the environment.
We do not put plastic in our parcels to pad the items, instead we use 100% recycled paper void fill. This paper goes through a special machine which crumples it in a particular way so it can provide protection for items whilst keeping the amount of actual paper used down to a minimum. We also have a paper based alternative to plastic bubble wrap. This is done with a Geami WrapPak machine which uses a combination of die cut kraft paper with a tissue interleaf paper. The die cut paper is expanded into a 3D honeycomb structure creating a unique wrapping. No tape is needed at the ends of the product as the angled cells can be locked together.
We will never put plastic packaging into your parcel, however if we have received a pack of items from a supplier in an outer plastic wrap (for example a pack of six glass jars), we may keep the products in this to best protect them, thus effectively reusing the plastic and requiring us to use less additional packaging. We are actively pushing all suppliers to remove plastic from their packaging.
Our delivery notes included inside your parcel are printed on 100% recycled paper. We offer a gift wrapping service and the gift wrap we have chosen to use is 100% recycled.
Trees for Life carbon offset
We have to accept that sending out orders for delivery does have an environmental impact from the transportation. This is why since 2012 we have worked with Trees for Life to offer you a quick and easy carbon offset in the checkout. Trees for Life are a wonderful charity based in Scotland, they are dedicated to rewilding the Scottish Highlands and have established 44 tree planting sites and planted nearly 2 million trees! The planting of trees does not just have the benefit of offsetting carbon, with each tree planted potentially lasts hundreds of years, by regenerating the forest a new habitat is created for everything from insects, birds up to mammals.
Through offering carbon offset, over 15,000 trees have been planted as a direct result of the donations from this.
