Environmental and Sustainability Policy and Action Plan– Beautifully Covered

The central message from COP26 was clear: we need to act to help the environment now.

Businesses play a significant role here. Here is a checklist of environmental actions that Beautifully Covered take to reduce carbon emissions, become more sustainable, and have less of a negative impact on the planet.

Improve the energy efficiency of our workplace

In 2016, energy use in industry and in buildings (both residential and commercial) accounted for 41.7 per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions, so there’s room to cut this down.

“For most companies, the starting point is going to be around energy efficiency. Not least because it is environmentally advantageous, but also cost saving to the firm,” Stephen Roper, professor of enterprise at Warwick Business School, told Small Business.

Here are some of the ways we have already started making changes:

• LED lights – they last longer, use less energy, and have lower maintenance costs than traditional lights
• Insulation – lower your emissions and spend less money on heating. We only heat a small office – the rest of our warehouse does not have/need heating.
• Team members only have laptops – they are more energy efficient than desktop computers
• Switch off as much as we can as often as we can. Our kitchen appliances are only on at the wall when in use, we do not use lights in our main warehouse aside from winter evenings as we have sky light windows.
• We review your appliances regularly and are aiming to replace them with more energy-efficient models, at least A+ rated
• We are in the process of switching to a smart meter.
• We have chosen a Zero Carbon Green energy Tariff.

Encourage staff to take greener transport to work

For Beautifully Covered staff members who drive: We encourage them to share rather than drive in separate cars. We do this by setting similar start/end times for employees who live close to each other wherever possible.

For Beautifully Covered staff members who do not drive: We have picked an office location that has great public transport links. We are located on the tram route, as well as multiple bus routes. We are also a short walk from the train station. We are also situated on a road with bike lanes and have ample space to safely store a bike should an employee wish to cycle.

Encourage home working staff to be more eco-minded

Working from home often has a number of environmental benefits. It reduces congestion in concentrated areas like city centres, plus it minimises pollution from commuting. On top of that, staff may be more inclined to use food they have at home rather than buying lunch and coffee in single-use containers. However, a number of home offices can leave a bigger carbon footprint than a central workplace, depending on your staff’s actions.

The Managing Director works from home, and other employees are encouraged to do so where possible. Specific tasks that can be completed from home, for example working on social media, admin etc is always encouraged to be worked on from home.

We are also extremely vigilant about recycling – we recently had our bin capacity increased so we could recycle more. We regularly take our batteries to the local store to ensure they are recycled responsibly.

We offer virtual consultations for our clients, to give them the option to not drive to our office. This has been extremely popular.

Ensure Company Vehicles meet Low Emission Standards and Avoid Unnecessary Journeys

All vehicles meet this standard. When planning our routes we divide teams by area and aim to work as efficiently as possible, for example collecting items a day later if we are back in the area and this works for our clients.

Minimise use of paper and stationery

We try and go paperless much as possible:

-All team announcements/updates are conducted through email or Microsoft Teams

-We have recently switched to using majority reuseable cable ties to try and eliminate plastic use

-We only print files where necessary, and a lot of our work is performed through Microsoft Teams. Printed files are often printed double-sided.

When trying to make positive changes, we ask ourselves the following questions:

• Does the business really need this?
• Where was this made?
• What happens to this when we no longer need it/want it? and what happens to the packaging?

“It’s not about being 100 per cent perfect, but in this way, you can train yourself (and your team) into better buying habits, and it’s amazing how fast this process can change your mindset,”

Use refurbished or second-hand goods

We try to only buy furniture for our office that we can also use for clients/jobs. For example, we have two sofas in our office that we use for our in-person meetings, but these have often been used for weddings. We regularly source unique items from charity shops and second hand. We have agreed purchase of wedding items from our clients to avoid them going to waste.

Improve recycling

A lot of workspaces already have recycling facilities, but you can go one step further by making it easier for staff by putting bins in places that are convenient to recycle. For example, we have a paper and card recycling bin near our printer.

We are vigilant about cleaning items to be recycled before they go in the bin, as we know food residue cannot be processed and the container they were hoping to recycle might end up in landfill.

Start composting

One of our goals is to start making our own compost. Coffee grounds, tea bags (if they do not contain plastic) and other food waste can be put in a compost bin or in a sealed container, and we also often have flower waste that could be added too.

Make sure our packaging is sustainable

Most of our packaging to take items to/from jobs are reusable and washable bags that last for many years.

We use plastic crates and fabric linen bags to pack items and carry them into venues.

We try to avoid using plastic bin bags where possible and reuse as many times as possible when clean.

We reuse delivery packaging such as bubble wrap and cardboard to protect items when packing

Get an external audit

This is another goal of ours – to bring in an external auditor to tell us where we can make positive changes.

Partner with green businesses and get them in your supply chain

We would like to partner with more green businesses. Green-providers.co.uk has a list of suppliers that have green credentials.

We mainly use UK based suppliers and all fabric products are manufactured right here in the UK. We have had great success this year using florals and foliage grown locally and would love to develop this further.