As part of its ongoing mission to become a more environmentally responsible business, Ivyline, the leading UK supplier of inspired collections for the garden and home, has confirmed that it has taken significant steps to reduce plastic within its packaging for end-user products.
Like many suppliers, Ivyline utilised single-use plastic to safely package products to minimise damage whilst in transit, however the company recognised that this waste product was contributing to a much bigger environmental issue. Following a period of significant development and consideration, Ivyline is now pleased to confirm that this plastic has now been fully replaced with recyclable paper on all online products. This one small change will help the company to remove hundreds of thousands of metres of plastic packaging from reaching UK waste sites every year.
Scott Thomas, Managing Director at Ivyline, said: “The detrimental impact of single-use plastic upon the environment has been well documented in recent years and we knew that we had to respond accordingly. As a leading supplier, and one that is consumer facing, we felt we had the responsibility to demonstrate that a move to more sustainable solutions was achievable without negatively impacting our service or product quality. For us, this move away from single-use plastic is the beginning of a much bigger journey for our company and one which we are dedicated to building on in the future.”
Sustainable manufacturing with ethically audited factories
Further to reducing reliance on single-use plastics, Ivyline has also confirmed that it is moving away from Chinese-based manufacturing partners. Instead, the company will now be channelling its efforts into supporting fast producing European-based suppliers as well as investing into new countries of manufacture instead. This has been a huge investment in tooling costs, new production lines, new moulds and R&D.
Scott Thomas added: “It’s really important to us as a business to know the origins of our products and to support manufacturers that place importance on sustainable and environmentally friendly practices. Whilst China was able to deliver volume, the ethical side of manufacturing is increasingly difficult to measure and as a result we felt that it was imperative to move forwards with partners that provide visibility on their approach to ensuring ethical and sustainable complaint processes. We are confident that our new partners hold similar values to our own and hope that this move by ourselves will help to start a change which will see others move away from a reliance on China, instead investing into other countries that hold quality of manufacture and support for people and the environment of equal importance. We are looking forward to working with our new factories and seeing the return on our huge investment as we develop the Ivyline offering in the coming years.”
In addition to moving away from traditional supply routes Ivyline is focussed on reducing its carbon footprint. The reduction in miles travelled on core ranges is up to 70% which has a huge impact on the environment. Focussing on fast producing clean manufactures closer to home, benefits the retailer as well as their environmentally conscious customers.
