In 2021 our UK small business made a commitment to Net Zero.
Part of that commitment is annual reporting on our progress. This blog post is written two years on from our formal commitment and aims to be transparent about what we have (and haven't) achieved.
Another big year in terms of change! Staff left to pursue their creative careers leaving just Rowena and Charlotte, both working remotely at opposite sides of the country.
We have continued with:
- Green energy supplies
- Packaging that can be recycled (most recently we have even been reusing packaging another business was getting rid of)
- Walking to and from post dispatch
- Operating a pre-order model to cut down on production waste
- Revival Pre-Loved
Revival Pre-Loved continues to run which we’re pleased about. The uptake in submissions and purchases has slowed way down but we strongly believe in the concept so it will run for the foreseeable. We have noted more and more other small businesses have started their own pre-loved concepts which is brilliant and we continue to encourage others.
Early 2023 saw us launch Revival Repairs which encourages our customers to send their well loved Revival Retro Own Range pieces to us for repair rather than chuck or recycle them. We are running this with an extremely skilled seamstress who is hugely passionate about sustainability and circular economy so we are very excited to learn and collaborate with her.
Moving our stock from London to Glasgow rendered many pieces of well worn Ikea furniture redundant. As the condition wasn’t great we worried we’d have no option but to send them to the tip, but when we advertised it locally for free our neighbours were more than happy to rehome the pieces.
Moving is no easy task, especially when you’re trying to do it in an as Earth friendly way as possible. We weighed up van hire and shipping, new boxes and recycled boxes and in the end we found what was best was shipping all of the stock in new cardboard boxes bought from our usual supplier (they plant trees for every order but more on initiatives like that another time) and sending them with a courier who would already have a van on the road.
We would have preferred to use recycled boxes but the new boxes we used ensured stock was safe and secure as losing or damaging stock in transit would have been a big waste environmentally, not just financially, and meant that the boxes could be used for storage at the other end so they are far from being disposed of anytime soon.
Rowena spoke about suppliers in last year's update and over the last year we have really narrowed these down. Admittedly though this has been less of a choice and more of a forced decision due to a lack of suppliers post Brexit and pandemic and because of the changing needs of the business.
Another step we have taken is to enrol in the German Recycling Scheme. We know some small business opted to simply stop sending to Germany to avoid this cost (registering and paying a fee is a requirement if you wish to send anything into Germany) but we are happy to take responsibility for the packaging we put out there into the world. The UK will be launching a similar scheme in the future so this is good practice for when that launches.
The above may all seem like small things, but as sustainability expert Adam Bastock said "making constant small changes is the most practical way forward".
As always we here for any and all discussion and welcome comments. You can reach us via email: boutique@revival-retro.com