Environmental Policy
Improving the environmental sustainability of the wedding industry is an issue close to our hearts, which is why we are on a mission to clean up our act. Less waste, zero single use products, increased life span of our products by using repairable, natural materials, and minimising travel and diesel emissions are all on the hit list!
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Look out for the green leaf on all our hire products which are ‘Crafted with love in our Cumbrian workshop from locally sourced, sustainable timber or made from up cycled / recycled materials’. Our aim ultimately is to have all our hire products reaching this standard, but we want to make sure we get the full lifespan of use out of the current imported and plywood made furniture we already have. |
‘We are far from perfect!’
Although we have been making good progress at making our operations more sustainable, we are far from perfect. Our biggest challenge and biggest polluter are diesel exhaust emissions from our vehicles. We deliver to mostly rural areas across Cumbria and Northumberland, usually carrying quite heavy loads of furniture. The currently available large electric vans and lorries have a realistic range of around 60 – 100 miles which just isn’t enough for the rural area we operate in.
We are excited to make the jump to electric vehicles once the technology and range is available for larger commercial vehicles. Until then we have restricted our delivery areas to keep our mileage to a minimum. We are also doing everything we can to avoid empty vehicles being on the road by combining delivery and collections where possible.
‘Every little helps’
Diesel emissions is not the only issue we face though, we have been working through all our business processes to see where we can reduce waste, consume less, and generally make our business practices more sustainable.
Small steps we have taken so far,
- We moved our office out of the warehouse and up to our home to reduce travel.
- We operate a paperless system with our drivers, with all job details now digital.
- We have switched all our cleaning products (we use a lot!) to Ocean Saver® Ecodrops to remove all single use plastic and plastic waste.
- All our cleaning cloths are bought as bundles of rags from recycled clothing.
- We now offer a rustic alternative to all our hire table options removing the need for tablecloths which are put through power consuming, chemical heavy industrial washing machines.
- We no longer use any bubble wrap or similar packaging products, instead we use reusable blankets and foam.
- We have scrapped future plans to buy any Resin / plastic furniture.
- We are phasing out our range of plywood tables in favour of pine alternatives which are easier to repair and maintain.
- We no longer offer single use event carpet and stage coverings, instead we stock 2 neutral colours which we wet vacuum between hires.
- We no longer offer single use voile ceiling drapes.
- Where possible we are buying up second hand furniture from other suppliers and giving it a full refurbishment to reduce the number of imports from abroad and raw materials used.