What does Green Business mean?

We're very pleased to be Green Small Business certified. But what does it mean?

Well, we have written an Environmental Policy Mission Statement (you can read it here) which states that:

We endeavour to:

• Incorporate environmental considerations into our business decisions.
• Continually improve and monitor our own environmental performance.
• Promote environmental awareness among our customers and suppliers.
• We are committed to NET ZERO by 2030.

All very well in theory but what about in practice?

All our packaging is recycled/recyclable/compostable. We invested in a cardboard shredder which is a lot of fun! It shreds cardboard into nets which we can then use to wrap our bottles in. So, cardboard comes in from goods ordered, and we shred it and use it to package the goods we send out. When needed, we supplement this with green bubble wrap that can be composted, so if it does end up in landfill it will degrade quickly (and add nutrients to soil microbes). Find out more about it at here. We also have a Bottle Return Scheme. Bring back your used Shed 1 bottles and we'll give you 20p for big bottles, 10p small ones and for marmalade jars. We'll also donate the same amount to charity via our Marmalade Fund.

Although a lot of our ingredients have a high carbon footprint (cinnamon doesn't grow in Cumbria!) wherever we can, we source locally grown ingredients. For example, blackberries are foraged, apples are Heritage Apples grown in Ulverston, blackcurrants are grown down the road in Levens, chillies are produced by our friend in Warton. There is also a company in the south of England who are growing coriander. Talking about our ingredients, we compost all our used botanicals.

We've set up the distillery so we can recycle the cooling water (through a closed cooling system; therefore a minimum of water loss) used in the distilling process. This saves thousands of litres of water from going down the drain.

The printing companies we use are environmentally aware from being FSC certified to using 80% recycled material and being able to offset our carbon footprint. We don't use lamination on any of our labels, stickers, postcards or pamphlets.

Kitchen paper and loo paper are made from bamboo by Who Gives A Crap, a brilliant company whose products are environmentally-friendly and who give 50% of their profits to help build toilets for those 2.3billion people who don't have safe access to one.

Ecover & Method are our cleaning products of choice, and we've employed a waste disposal company in order to be have our waste recycled whenever possible.

We have also twinned the Shed loo and taps thanks to the Toilet Twinning initiative in association with Tear Fund.

Have you heard of the Recorked scheme? Bring us your used corks and we'll send them all off to be recycled.

The list goes on and we're continuing to research and improve our environmental performance where possible.

Watch this space!