“We all have a responsibility to help safeguard the environment, personally, in business and as an industry as a whole,” states James Conn, ceo of UK Greetings. The major card publisher has always taken the issue of the environment seriously, but its decision to form a dedicated Environmental Steering Group, which includes key personnel with different specialisms demonstrates UKG’s deeper commitment to instigate environmental improvements in the supply chain and the industry at large.
“Our Environmental Steering Group’s collective strengths mean that we can investigate possible improvements from all angles. We are reviewing end to end processes, including product, manufacturing and distribution to drive our ‘reducing avoidable waste’ project forward,” adds James. “We are working with our retail partners to understand what strategies they are implementing to meet the change in government legislation on this front and are offering solutions to support their pledges.”
UKG has already started making changes internally, with its Plastic Free Friday initiative which forms part of its plastic elimination strategy.
This ongoing campaign involves weekly activities to reduce the business’ plastic footprint.
Starting with a ‘quick win’, all plastic cups have been removed from the publisher’s water fountains and canteen areas.
Last Friday’s (March 16) #plasticfreefriday activity saw UKG employees all invited to buy a re-usable thermos cup at a vastly reduced price, thereby eradicating the need to use the single use cups provided by the Costa Coffee operation within UKG’s offices, factories and warehouses.
Commenting on the response from the UKG staff to the #plasticfreefriday campaign, Rachel Wood, UKG’s product development director for private label and member of the Environmental Steering Group said: “We have received lots of positive feedback and it’s great to see how everyone at UKG has embraced this positive change”.
