No business can ignore their Carbon Footprint, nor their responsibilities to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions. At ALLpaQ, we believe in doing the best we can for our customers – and an important part of this is also doing the best for our team, their families and the environment we all live in.
We have all become aware of global warming, the climate crisis and the need to start measuring our Carbon Footprints. At ALLpaQ, we have recently spent time reviewing, developing and acting on this and it is now reflected in our Environmental Statement: “It is our mission to not just sustain but to improve the future”.
It may not be that widely known but our products are designed to be re-used many times, making them a more sustainable alternative to one-trip bioprocess packaging. This has always been important to us and now we want to engage and make it easier for our customers too.
When we were creating ALLpaQ, in the mid-noughties, ‘recycling’ was not widely considered such a significant topic; never-the-less, we wanted the three arrows in our brand logo to represent the life-cycle of our products. Today, more than ever, we are proud to offer certified recycling for any and all products.
As a valued ALLpaQ customer, you can simply return your product to us and we will send a certificate of recycling for your sustainability records.
The UK’s Net Zero Strategy
Here at ALLpaQ, we understand that the nature of our business means our Footprint might be larger than other companies, so making an immediate change is a top priority for us. Every small change we make now helps us move closer to achieving our goal of producing Net Zero carbon.
Our government’s ‘Net Zero Strategy’ sets out how the UK will deliver on its commitment to reach Net Zero emissions by 2050. It also outlines how the government will help businesses and consumers to move to cleaner, more sustainable business practices by 2030.
This is all in accordance with the Paris Agreement, the United Nations resolution which 192 individual countries and the entire EU signed up to, back in 2015.
At ALLpaQ, we infuse green-thinking throughout our production processes and our products’ life-cycles. We have recently had our sustainability rated by Ecovadis and we were awarded a Silver Sustainability Rating. That’s a fantastic achievement, but shows that there is still more we can do. There’s more that we will do!
No one understands ALLpaQ’s commitment to the environment and to responsible, sustainable business practice better than Kirsten Goddard, our Group Finance Director.
So, we asked Kirsten to detail ALLpaQ’s commitment to Net Zero and the steps being taken to achieve it:
What new measures is ALLpaQ taking towards Net Zero?
“This year, we have really focused on how to best reduce our environmental impact as a business. We began this by setting up a dedicated Sustainability Team, as well as contracting an external specialist – Green Small Business – which has helped us define our objectives and they have advised us as on the most accurate and enduring method to approach this.
“As a result, a lot of action has already taken place and we are very proud to say we have reached the first part of our Net Zero Objective by being on a Carbon Removal Pathway.”
How are you analyzing ALLpaQ’s current Footprint?
“Small Green Business has had many meetings with our Sustainability Team and explained how we can address direct and indirect emissions.
“We’ve also arranged workshops looking at ALLpaQ products and their lifecycle, as well as at our purchasing of goods and services.
“We are world leaders in what we produce; being world leaders in how we produce is just as important.”
Kirsten Goddard, ALLpaQ Finance Director
“We’re also looking closely at buildings, waste and all aspects of transportation (such as commuting, business travel, transportation of products, etc).
“We now have a clearly defined environmental policy and action plan in place. We have almost come to the end of the first round of data capture, to measure our Carbon Footprint for the last financial year, and have already started reducing our Carbon Footprint wherever possible.”
How are you reducing your Carbon Footprint?
“We felt it important to make this a business-wide priority so, to ensure wider staff engagement, we sent over 20 of our team on an environmental training course run by Tim Maiden at Small Green Business.
“As a priority we only use, where possible, sustainable companies. We recently changed many of our suppliers to fulfil this objective and we will continue to work on that as a priority. This has reduced our carbon emissions on transport due to less deliveries to our sites.
“We are now on a mission to become a paperless office and, in the meantime, we ensure that all paper and ink used for printing is from recycled materials and that cartridges and paper are all recycled again after use.
“Our production supervisors have recently changed the way they order, to ensure our purchasing procedure is improved. A system is now in place where we place only one order per supplier, for all our sites, to reduce our transport emissions on delivery.
“Our admin team has been on a mission to source a sustainable company to supply all our uniforms and find a provider to recycle any old uniforms. We are now very proud that this has been put in place.
“As a company, we encourage car sharing, the cycle to work scheme and we’re now looking into an electric car scheme to promote within the company.
“We have also placed recycle bins in strategic positions throughout all our sites to ensure every bit of waste possible is recycled. This is now monitored and measured, so we can keep track of our waste recycling to ensure we are constantly looking at ways to improve.
“And, once our Carbon Footprint calculation is complete, we will know what needs to change and our Sustainability Team will work closely with Tim at Small Green Business to reduce our carbon emissions even more.”
ALLpaQ – leading by example
As Kirsten says: at ALLpaQ, we are world leaders in what we produce; being world leaders in how we produce is just as important.
To that end, ALLpaQ wants to lead by example.
Feedback and customer opinion is important to us! So, if you have any thoughts on ways ALLpaQ can improve our sustainability – or would like to know more about the steps we’re taking – don’t hesitate to get in touch either directly, or by using the form below.
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ALLpaQ, Bioprocess Containers, environmental, Kirsten Goddard, Net Zero,
