Over the past 12 months, we’ve been hard at work making Shepherds Friendly more environmentally friendly and reaching towards our sustainability goals. This update will give you a quick look into what our Green Team have been up to over the past year to make the planet a greener place, and what we have managed to achieve as a Society.
What we’ve achieved this year
Big or small, we’ve completed some incredible projects this year, all of which have helped us make great strides towards becoming more sustainable. Here are some of our key achievements from 2022:
Investors in the Environment
Early in 2022, Shepherds Friendly was audited by Investors in the Environment (iiE), an organisation that has helped us learn more about our own impact, and how we can reduce our footprint. Thanks to the great initiatives that the Green Team has introduced and the hard work of our people, we were awarded a Bronze accreditation from iiE in February this year.
Carbon Neutral Head Office
Combined with our initiatives to lower our impact, we also achieved carbon neutrality at our Head Office in Cheadle, meaning all the unavoidable emissions from our office are now being offset. We partnered with ClimatePartner in 2022 to help us with our footprint, and we’re proud to have funded projects, such as afforestation efforts in Cumbria, UK and ocean cleaning worldwide, to help us reach this goal.
Find out more about our work with iiE, and our carbon neutral status, in our news story: https://www.shepherdsfriendly.co.uk/news/carbon-neutral-head-office/
Wear, Share, and Care Campaign
Earlier in the year, our people contributed donations of pre-loved clothes to the Cash for Kids ‘Wear, Share, Care’ campaign. Across the team, we donated 130kg of old clothes, which will be repurposed for those in need across the world instead of going to a landfill. That’s not all! For every tonne of clothes donated, Cash for Kids pledged to donate £400 to help underprivileged children in the community. We are incredibly proud to have made such a great contribution to an amazing cause, all while helping the environment.
Find out more about the ‘Wear, Share, Care’ campaign in our news story, here: https://www.shepherdsfriendly.co.uk/news/global-recycling-day-22/
Plastic-Free July
July was all about reducing our plastic use. We were grateful to attend an informative session from Investors in the Environment on our Plastic-Free Together Day, which covered how we can all make small changes to reduce single-use plastic. We were inspired by the great tips from iiE, and our Together Day was a great opportunity to try out a low-impact lunch, instead of buying pre-packaged food. We also handed out some awesome reusable tote bags to help reduce our use of disposable plastic bags.
Active Travel Week
As part of our strategy to earn a Silver accreditation from iiE at our next audit, our people took part in Active Travel Week this year. The goal of the week was to travel greener, either by hopping on public transport instead of the car, or cycling or walking to work. We wanted to raise awareness of the impact that our daily commuting habits can have on the environment, and we tried to explore more eco-friendly alternatives to collectively reduce our carbon footprint.
We collected data throughout the week and will use what we have learned in our work with iiE, but it was also a great opportunity for us all to be a bit more conscious of how we travel, and the impact we can have.
Small changes for a better future
Our Green Team has also introduced some small changes that have made a big difference to reducing our impact on the environment. A few examples are:
- Setting up a recycling station in the kitchen area.
- Using reusable cups made of bamboo.
- Using recyclable cutlery, plates, and napkins on our Together Days.
- Unplugging one of our kitchen fridges to save power.
That’s it!
While we could go on with even more initiatives that the Green Team has implemented over the past year, you’re now up to date with the highlights of how we’ve tried to become a more sustainable society throughout 2022. Can you believe how much we have achieved?
Thank you for reading our Green Team update! As we look forward to 2023, we can’t wait to learn more about how we can reduce our impact and share our progress with you soon!
The Shepherds Friendly Green Team
