Formal Sustainability Report 2021
How is Astral Hygiene doing in the quest to become a sustainable company?
Astral Hygiene have a strategic initiative to become a sustainable company with a carbon neutral way of working making sure that the business we conduct, only enhances the environment and the world in which we live and doesn’t take any more of the scarce natural resources that are ever depleting in the world I which we live.
We want to be really open and transparent about the actions we are taking, and the work we still need to do. We want to make our updates as accessible as possible, so we will do vlogs about our progress, but we also thought we would share it here.
We acknowledge our daily activities can directly impact the environment, using natural
resources and can create emissions and waste. We will operate in compliance with all
relevant environmental legislation and we will strive to use pollution prevention and
environmental best practices in all we do.
Our carbon footprint at the time of print is 10.41, tonnes of C02e; we will strive to bring this down.
We commit to continual improvement of processes and practices and have to date
achieved a sustainable supply chain in terms of goods in. We have achieved this
through close partnership with specifically chosen suppliers who value our environment
and our commitment to reduction of the impact on climate change as much as we do.
We also reduce energy in our HQ where possible, by closing doors in all rooms, low
energy heating systems, and a lights off policy in rooms when not in use.
Headquarters
In terms of the most obvious place we could save energy, we have done this completely at our HQ, and all of our buildings are now completely carbon neutral. We have done this by changing energy supplier and have moved over to a completely green energy tariff, meaning that all our energy is offset, and all the energy we use at our head quarters is replenished via renewable energy sources either wave, wind or solar energy.
In consumption of energy, we think very carefully about how we use energy and
particularly how we can reduce the use of energy. We use low energy vehicles, we train
our drivers to plan the route in the most ecological way possible. We reduce the amount
of electricity we use through a ‘lights off’ policy, we only heat warehouses where necessary due to regulations or cold weather conditions.
With regards to waste, we reuse boxes to send out our web orders, we sort and recycle
our waste through out our operation, and have a waste recycling partner to recycle all
waste we put in our recycling bin.
We use water very sparingly, and have a water metre on all of our premises to monitor
and address water wastage.
We provide a consolidated delivery method on all of our deliveries by stocking a wide
range of cleaning and hygiene goods, allowing every customer to get more than one
thing at a time. We review suppliers and their sustainability with every project review
meeting and this is addressed frequently throughout the year.
We will:-
- integrate the consideration of environmental concerns and impacts into all of our
decision making and activities,
- promote environmental awareness among our employees and encourage them to
work in an environmentally responsible manner,
- train, educate and inform our employees about environmental issues that may
affect their work,
- reduce waste through re-use and recycling and by purchasing recycled, recyclable
or re-furbished products and materials where these alternatives are available,
economical and suitable,
- promote efficient use of materials and resources throughout our facility including
water, electricity, raw materials and other resources, particularly those that are
non-renewable,
- avoid unnecessary use of hazardous materials and products, seek substitutions
when feasible, and take all reasonable steps to protect human health and the
environment when such materials must be used, stored and disposed of,
- purchase and use environmentally responsible products accordingly,
- where required by legislation or where significant health, safety or environmental
hazards exist, develop and maintain appropriate emergency and spill response
programmes,
- communicate our environmental commitment to clients, customers and the public
and encourage them to support it,
- strive to continually improve our environmental performance and minimise the
social impact and damage of activities by periodically reviewing our
environmental policy in light of our current and planned future activities.
Supply Chain
We have conducted extensive work with our supply chain, and have made a brave and
bold choice to only use suppliers who can supply sustainable products. Sustainability as
a word is one that can have many meanings attributed to it, but for clarity we only bring
in paper products that are EU Ecolabel accredited.
The EU Ecolabel is a label which certifies environmental excellence. This label is only given to products that meet high environmental standards throughout their life cycle: from raw material extraction to production, distribution and disposal. We believe we are the only distributor to have
achieved this.
The assurance that we seek from our suppliers in that all wood fibres are harvested from
sustainable forests, and not harvested illegally from protected forests is given to us
through the rigorous criteria which has to be met by the EU Ecolabel standard which all
of our paper products must meet.
Where we stock EU Ecolabel chemical products i.e. environmentally friendly, all must
have the EU Ecolabel accreditation.
Where some products cannot be environmentally friendly, due to what they are designed
to do, i.e Machine Dishwash (too high an acid content to strip the dishes of grease and
oil), sanitiser (because anything that is killing bacteria and viruses is not eco-friendly)
we require the manufacturer to be shipping the goods as ecologically economically as
possible – with offset carbon emissions and full loads, recycling materials and waste and
working towards refilling 5ltr containers once returned. We also require the procurement
of raw materials to be sustainable and environmentally friendly.
As a small family business with suppliers across the world, we accept that we have a
duty to trade responsibly.
We therefore want to ensure that those people with whom we deal and in particular our
suppliers and our representatives live up to our values and standards and share that
responsibility. This is why we have set out Astral Hygiene’s Supplier Code of Conduct.
Accordingly, suppliers and representatives should comply with and seek to develop
relationships with their own supply chains consistent with the principles set out below
and should be compliant with all local laws and the following principles as a minimum.
Our principles are as follows
- Employment is freely chosen
- Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining are respected
- Working conditions are safe and hygienic
- Child labour shall not be used
- Land Acquisition
- Living wages are paid
- Working hours are not excessive
- No discrimination is practised
- Regular employment is provided
- No harsh or inhumane treatment is allowed
- Confidentiality
- No bribery or corruption will be tolerated
- Environmental management
- Quality
- Audit and termination of agreements
Single Use Plastic
One of the core principles of Astral Hygiene is to play as significant a part as we can in
reducing plastic pollution. We see plastic pollution as one of the defining challenges of
our time.
We are in a unique position at the very middle of the distribution and decision-making
system to influence and provide choice to our customer base and offer alternative
solutions to using plastic.
It is of grave concern to everyone who works at Astral that our environment is being
more and more damaged by human activity, and it is distressing that plastic that is only
being used once, or plastic that isn't being properly recycled is not only damaging our
environment and our seas, but is also entering the food chain.
As a distributor to some of the largest brands, we take our responsibility to act very seriously. We work with every supplier on their supply chain, as Astral Hygiene do not procure any stock items
from an unsustainable source. We are entirely unique in the Cleaning and Hygiene
market place, a distributor that has sustainability as a very heavily weighted criteria to
work with us... there is no other distributor who behaves in this way.
This directive has come directly from our Managing Director, so the passion for this
sustainability and caring for our environment comes right from the grass roots of our
business, and runs through every Astral team member. When we recruit, to ensure new
employees fit our organisational culture, they must have a natural desire to care for the
environment, and have a love of all things natural.
As a result of this choice, we no longer sell polystyrene, or plastic cutlery.... we just
simply don't because it is harmful to the environment.
Our view is if every distributor behaves this way the harm we are inflicting on our world
would be considerably diminished, and it is because of this we want to lead the way.
Many of our customers are setting ambitious targets for their packaging to become
environmentally sustainable. A simple change of distributor will help them to meet that
goal and that is one of Astral's unique selling points.
Many leading companies have set bold targets to minimise the impacts of the products
they use. For example, at Davos 2018, 11 major companies including Unilever, Walmart
and The Coca-Cola Company announced that they are working towards 100%
sustainable packaging by 2025. That date is not very far in the future, but Astral
Hygiene has already achieved this. This has been executed through bold decision
making, and proactive buying decisions and is being driven by the most senior
leadership team.
All of our paper products that are wrapped in plastic come from sustainable and recycled
plants, meaning we are reusing and increasing the life of plastics already in our
environment.
As an organisation that only partners with manufacturers that offer sustainable solutions
in terms of plastic we are very specific in our selection criteria. For example we only buy
our plastic refuse sacks from recycled materials. We do this with quality as well as
sustainability in mind. Every bag is drop tested from a specific height with a specific
weight contained within the bag. The quality of our products is not compromised, but
sometimes it takes us longer to procure our suppliers. This is a sacrifice we are willing
to make, because this goal is one we have been working towards for the last 15 years.
Now that we have got the procurement of sustainable products all sown up, we are now
working on end of life plastic products which come through our distribution centre. We
are working with our suppliers on a new innovative solution for our delivery fleet to
collect used 5ltr containers of chemicals and return them to the supplier to be refilled
and reused. This initiative is in its infancy, but it is one we are passionate about making
happen. When this is achieved we will be impacting on the whole supply chain we are
involved with.
Moving forward into 2022, we will be monitoring our carbon footprint, and trying to bring it down. We will also be reducing the amount of water and waste we produce; we have only just started monitoring how much we use, so we are trying to establish a benchmark.
We will also begin to look at electric vehicles to see if we can procure one that can do the mileage we need on a daily basis within the energy consumption available on the marketplace.
There is still lots for us to do, but we are proud of the strides we have made and will continue to improve our sustainability.
