Sustainable business practises from the UK’s greenest companies
UK nonprofit B-lab has a vision to “transform the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet” by guiding business to adopt practises to build a regenerative economy.
Sustainable business practises from the UK’s greenest companies.
UK nonprofit B-lab has a vision to “transform the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet” by guiding business to adopt practises to build a regenerative economy.
Since 2006 9,576 companies have become certifies under B-lab’s standards. Standards are largely tailored to the companies’ size and context, the businesses carrying its badge span 160 countries and multiple industries. Each business must be eligible, operating for at least a year and must commit to stakeholder governance, ensuring accountability to all stakeholders.
Some of the standout businesses certified by B-lab include:
Grow Bristol has miraculously developed urban cultivation techniques to grow fresh greens year-round in urban spaces using hydroponics and aquaponics. Hydroponics involves growing plants in nutrient rich water without the need for soil. This process makes farming highly adaptable and non-reliant on flat open space. Aquaponics is a dual farming system of growing plants and fish farming. As water from the fish tanks become well fertilized with fish waste it becomes nutrient rich and suitable for crops, likewise once the nutrients have been absorbed by the plants the remaining water is clear and suitable for the fish tanks. The system recycles the majority of its components.
The production process resembles Grow Bristol’s social enterprise, with common principals of replenishment and sustainability at the centre. Grow Bristol reaches out to schools and communities to invite learning and participation. their vision is to expand urban farming projects creating almost its own sector while socially integrating the enterprise.
‘Toast’ is Yorkshire brewing company that uses unsold loaves of bread from wholesale food producers to make its beers. About 44% of bread is wasted between home consumption and supply chain waste! Toast rescues waste bread from the supply chain, noting the main sources to be sandwich factories that discard the crusts as it isn't used to make sandwiches and bakeries overproducing to ensure they can always meet demand. (This links with to ‘overloading’ in renewable energy production). Toast was founded in 2016 to eliminate waste by redirecting it into its production process.
The company is a success as a sustainable company and as a popular brewer, earning 2 B-lab certifications and winning Great Taste awards. 100% of profits are donated to Earth restoring charities.
LEON doesn’t really stand out in appearance from the other big high street coffee chains but it does a lot of things differently. Its menu and practises are embedded in regenerative principals, solidarity and coffee. Each café uses green energy and every part of what you buy can be composted. Each link in the supply chain sustainable and the chain is partnered with ClimatePartner to measure, reduce, and offset its carbon footprint, mainly through reforestation in the UK and its supply base in South America.
The regenerative foundation of the business closely links it to b-labs core values.
OLIO is a platform to connect local people to share foods and items. Instead of wasting items they can be listed as available for others to collect, for free. OLIO expands on Toast’s principal of reallocating waste by facilitating varied and independent sharing. Originally created to tackle food waste, the platform has branched into clothes, toiletries, and kitchen equipment. The app is used in over 49 countries while the app is managed by no more than 100 people showing how initiatives can take off and run horizontally. OLIO shows how communication is a major tool to combat waste and therefore loss.
Pavegen. Covered in a previous blog, Pavegen’s energy producing tiles turn footsteps into readily usable power. So far, the technology has been installed in busy city centres and shopping hubs in 36 countries harnessing crowd’s spent energy to power the lights and services around them. Pavegen’s first major mark of success was powering Floodlit football stadium in Rio de Janeiro by placing tiles under the turf and having the players keep the lights on.
The technology has an exciting road ahead and could become a staple of sustainable modern cities and design projects.
In conclusion, businesses from a variety of sectors can interrelate sustainable practises. Initiatives like Toast and OLOI show how access to another’s waste material can substitutes much of the needs of another. Waste not, want not. Communication is a major tool that enables parties to exchange resources. One’s own inventory will cast the illusion that what’s needed is always new.
Pavegen and Grow Bristol both see ways forward using new and unorthodox technologies while LEON uses makes tried business practises refreshingly sustainable.
Even simpler solutions can be adopted by businesses across the board. Centralising a floor or section’s waste system, having collection of bins serving a floor of a business, for example, makes visible the quantity of waste and the importance of cumulative acts of sorting waste by material.
Given that 1/5 of all waste in England is generated by businesses and the majority of waste is recyclable, businesses can contribute 15% the country’s recycling.
Sustainable responsibility is often over individualised, masterfully sowed by BP’s concept of the ‘Carbon Footprint’ which serves to offset responsibility and nothing more. The businesses featured here and those in line with B-lab’s vision show that the big difference big operations can make.
UK nonprofit B-lab has a vision to “transform the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet” by guiding business to adopt practises to build a regenerative economy.
Since 2006 9,576 companies have become certifies under B-lab’s standards. Standards are largely tailored to the companies’ size and context, the businesses carrying its badge span 160 countries and multiple industries. Each business must be eligible, operating for at least a year and must commit to stakeholder governance, ensuring accountability to all stakeholders.
Some of the standout businesses certified by B-lab include:
Grow Bristol has miraculously developed urban cultivation techniques to grow fresh greens year-round in urban spaces using hydroponics and aquaponics. Hydroponics involves growing plants in nutrient rich water without the need for soil. This process makes farming highly adaptable and non-reliant on flat open space. Aquaponics is a dual farming system of growing plants and fish farming. As water from the fish tanks become well fertilized with fish waste it becomes nutrient rich and suitable for crops, likewise once the nutrients have been absorbed by the plants the remaining water is clear and suitable for the fish tanks. The system recycles the majority of its components.
The production process resembles Grow Bristol’s social enterprise, with common principals of replenishment and sustainability at the centre. Grow Bristol reaches out to schools and communities to invite learning and participation. their vision is to expand urban farming projects creating almost its own sector while socially integrating the enterprise.
‘Toast’ is Yorkshire brewing company that uses unsold loaves of bread from wholesale food producers to make its beers. About 44% of bread is wasted between home consumption and supply chain waste! Toast rescues waste bread from the supply chain, noting the main sources to be sandwich factories that discard the crusts as it isn't used to make sandwiches and bakeries overproducing to ensure they can always meet demand. (This links with to ‘overloading’ in renewable energy production). Toast was founded in 2016 to eliminate waste by redirecting it into its production process.
The company is a success as a sustainable company and as a popular brewer, earning 2 B-lab certifications and winning Great Taste awards. 100% of profits are donated to Earth restoring charities.
LEON doesn’t really stand out in appearance from the other big high street coffee chains but it does a lot of things differently. Its menu and practises are embedded in regenerative principals, solidarity and coffee. Each café uses green energy and every part of what you buy can be composted. Each link in the supply chain sustainable and the chain is partnered with ClimatePartner to measure, reduce, and offset its carbon footprint, mainly through reforestation in the UK and its supply base in South America.
The regenerative foundation of the business closely links it to b-labs core values.
OLIO is a platform to connect local people to share foods and items. Instead of wasting items they can be listed as available for others to collect, for free. OLIO expands on Toast’s principal of reallocating waste by facilitating varied and independent sharing. Originally created to tackle food waste, the platform has branched into clothes, toiletries, and kitchen equipment. The app is used in over 49 countries while the app is managed by no more than 100 people showing how initiatives can take off and run horizontally. OLIO shows how communication is a major tool to combat waste and therefore loss.
Pavegen. Covered in a previous blog, Pavegen’s energy producing tiles turn footsteps into readily usable power. So far, the technology has been installed in busy city centres and shopping hubs in 36 countries harnessing crowd’s spent energy to power the lights and services around them. Pavegen’s first major mark of success was powering Floodlit football stadium in Rio de Janeiro by placing tiles under the turf and having the players keep the lights on.
The technology has an exciting road ahead and could become a staple of sustainable modern cities and design projects.
In conclusion, businesses from a variety of sectors can interrelate sustainable practises. Initiatives like Toast and OLOI show how access to another’s waste material can substitutes much of the needs of another. Waste not, want not. Communication is a major tool that enables parties to exchange resources. One’s own inventory will cast the illusion that what’s needed is always new.
Pavegen and Grow Bristol both see ways forward using new and unorthodox technologies while LEON uses makes tried business practises refreshingly sustainable.
Even simpler solutions can be adopted by businesses across the board. Centralising a floor or section’s waste system, having collection of bins serving a floor of a business, for example, makes visible the quantity of waste and the importance of cumulative acts of sorting waste by material.
Given that 1/5 of all waste in England is generated by businesses and the majority of waste is recyclable, businesses can contribute 15% the country’s recycling.
Sustainable responsibility is often over individualised, masterfully sowed by BP’s concept of the ‘Carbon Footprint’ which serves to offset responsibility and nothing more. The businesses featured here and those in line with B-lab’s vision show that the big difference big operations can make.
