Our commitment to sustainability
Our Quality and Sustainability Manager
Hi everyone – I’m Sam, the Quality and Sustainability Manager at In Kind Direct. Part of my role is looking at how we can reduce our environmental impact, as we help more communities to thrive. I’m delighted to share with you below some things we’ve been working on, and some ambitions we have lined up. But first, for those who may not be familiar with ESG – here’s a little explanation:
Understanding ESG
ESG stands for Environment, Social and Governance. It essentially extends the traditional sustainability issues of just environmental impact, to also include good governance practices and social factors. Here at In Kind Direct, we believe that improving lives shouldn’t cost the earth.
We recognise the need to continually evolve and provide more help to communities whilst actively reducing our environmental footprint.
What does this mean for me?
As part of our network of charitable organisations, you play a vital role in this journey. Already you have helped divert 36,200 tonnes of products from waste.
You may have noticed that we use recycled cardboard in our packaging filler, to ensure our products are well protected whilst cutting down on our single-use plastics.
We have partnered with Global Resale, a leading provider of refurbished technology, which is available on our catalogue. For every refurbished laptop purchased, 316 kg of CO2 is saved – the equivalent to taking 3 cars off the road!
Furthermore, from January to June this year, our logistics partners DPD delivered 10,840 parcels in Electric Vehicles (EVs) to our network. This saved 2,992 kg of CO2, the equivalent of planting 12 trees. DPD are increasing the number of EV deliveries they make, with a plan by the end of 2023 to deliver to 30 cities using only EVs and using a more sustainable HVO fuel (a diesel replacement made from recycled fryer oil) in all of their Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs).
We’ve also been reducing the number of pallets we send out, which produce more carbon emissions to send and are not as easy to accept by some organisations in our network.
Internally, we’ve shifted more to online meetings and to group physical meetings to reduce travel beyond the office.
“In recent weeks we have been trying to promote an environmental “plastic free” initiative. The shampoo bars are ideal – it means that we can give these away as a “starter initiative” and encourage folk to consider using them instead of buying plastic bottles of shampoo.”
Salvation Army, Chelsea
Our ESG Ambitions: pledging for a better tomorrow
We are committed to minimising our carbon footprint by reducing our energy consumption and adopting sustainable practices within our operations.
You can expect to see more environmentally friendly changes coming over the next 12 months, as we look to further reduce our use of single-use plastics and work with our corporate partners to increase the number of eco-friendly products available on our catalogue. We will continue to work with our logistics and delivery partners towards more sustainable solutions to deliver products to you too.
For further reading, have a look at the blog on our interconnected approach to sustainability from Charlotte, our Partnerships and Impact Director, on the Charity Digital website.
We’re always here for a chat!
I've been inspired by the transformative power of the organisations who use our products. If you would like to discuss ESG, or the things your organisation is doing to improve your own sustainability, then let us know - looking forward to hearing from you!
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