We are committed to meeting the UK standard for managing our environmental impact and we also recognise the impact of our business operations and activities on the environment.
Sustainability can be defined as putting environmental and economic matters on a more equal foothold with the aim of improving quality of life for current and future generations. Safeguarding the vitality of our planet and upholding high ethical and social standards is our collective responsibility and we will play our part by continuing to integrate sustainability in to our day to day.
We raise money through charity shops and community events, so these are the areas where we focus our attention on sustainability.
In December 2016, we were awarded BEST GREEN BUSINESS IN WANDSWORTH in the Wandsworth Business Awards.
Each year we stop thousands of tonnes of household objects and textiles going into landfill.
Whether it be through sales in our shops, at local street festivals, online via eBay and other re-seller sites, at auction or through commercial recyclers, we aim to give every item we are donated to a new home.
We recycle clothing, books, household items and electricals, while choosing our partners carefully to ensure they have same values that we do.
We have set out some goals to endeavour we adhere to our green agenda which are listed below:
- Improve the energy efficiency of our operations by moving to LED lighting in all premises, as the old bulbs fail.
- Encourage resource efficiency throughout our operations.
- Follow the three ‘R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: We commit to reusing donated or second-hand items to fit out our charity shops and for in house administration wherever possible we commit to recycle as much as humanly possible if we cannot sell it in the shops. We will always use ethical commercial recyclers.
- Reduce waste to landfill by 10% each year from 2016 baseline.
- Uphold high ethical standards with respect to purchasing decisions and include – where possible – environmental and social criteria in decision making.
- Use our charity shops as a platform to highlight the environmental benefits of not throwing away unwanted items and not contributing to landfill.
- Mobilise our supporters in the community by demonstrating how the three ‘R’s can be fun and raise money at the same time.
- Be Creative in the promotion of reuse, upcycling and recycling through events and promotions in our shops.