Spring 2024 Sustainability Update

We’re springing into the new season with our first sustainability update of the year! Read on to learn more about B Corp Month, our 2023/24 Impact Report, some of the milestones we’ve set for 2024 that we’ve already (almost) ticked off, and our nomination for Brand of The Year at the Drapers Sustainable Fashion Awards.

Last year, we became a Certified B Corporation, which means that, as a business, we meet high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. It’s not an easy certification to get, and for good reason - Certified B Corps are among some of the most sustainable businesses around!

Part of being a Certified B Corporation is releasing a yearly impact report with updates on our sustainability goals and the progress we’ve made throughout the year - we just released our 2023/24 Impact Report to kick off B Corp Month!

B Corp Month

B Corp Month takes place during March every year, and it’s a chance for B Lab and the global B Corp community to join together to celebrate everything it means to be a B Corp.

The B Corp Month theme for 2024 is ‘this way forward’ - showing the world how we can all work together towards a more sustainable future. We’re so incredibly proud of our B Corp Certification, but we are well aware that our work is far from over.

We have set ourselves some ambitious targets as part of this year’s Impact Report, from calculating our scope 3 emissions to help us better understand our overall impact to reducing the amount of blended fabrics in our range and improving our packaging based on customer feedback.

We know we still have more to do, but in the spirit of B Corp month and moving forward together, our stance remains: where a better, more sustainable solution exists and is attainable for us, we are determined to implement it.

What Is An Impact Report?

Certified B Corporations are assessed every three years with the aim of improving their overall score by becoming more sustainable in different areas of their business. During the two-year period between assessments, B Corps are required to publish an annual report detailing any sustainability achievements and goals they’re working towards.

We published our first impact report at the start of 2023, and we’ve just published our 2023/24 Impact Report, which you can read in full here.

Spring Sustainability Update: So far this year…

It might only be March, but we’re already well on the way to achieving some of our ambitious sustainability targets! Our biggest goal for the first quarter was to publish our 2023/24 Impact Report, something our entire team has been working hard on behind the scenes since the end of last year, but we’ve also made progress towards some of our other targets…

Paper Mailing Bags & Paperless Returns

In our 2022/23 Impact Report, we said that we wanted to investigate alternative sustainable materials for our mailing bags, with a view to switching from GreenTM PE, a plastic alternative derived from a resin that originates in sugarcane, to a paper alternative. 

Following customer feedback, in 2023, we made the decision to switch over to paper bags after investigating different sustainable options, and we placed our order at the end of last year. To help limit waste, we decided to use up our remaining supply of GreenTM PE bags before switching to our new paper packaging. Some of the larger paper bags are already being circulated, so keep your eyes peeled - you might receive one soon!

This year, we will remove the order notes that are currently included in all our order parcels to help reduce paper waste further. We're in the process of implementing this with our warehouse team and expect to make the transition to paperless returns in the next few weeks!

Drapers Sustainable Fashion Awards

We're so excited to announce that we've been shortlisted for the Drapers Sustainable Fashion Awards Brand of the Year! These prestigious awards recognise the strides being made in reducing the industry's environmental impact and creating fairer working conditions across the supply chain. The awards ceremony will take place in London on the 13th March, and we’re so incredibly honoured to be nominated alongside so many amazing brands working to forge real change within the industry.

Monthly Sustainability Newsletter

Following feedback in last year’s customer survey, this year, we will send out a quarterly sustainability newsletter to transparently communicate the progress we’re making towards our sustainability goals.

These newsletters will provide up-to-date information about how we’re working towards the goals set out in our 2023/24 Impact Report, as well as some behind-the-scenes sustainability content focused on the efforts our team makes to put people and the planet first in our business. We'll be sending our quarterly newsletters out at the same time we publish our seasonal sustainability update blog posts - so subscribe to our mailing list if you want to hear more from us about this!