Our Environmental PolicyYour children's future is uncertain. The planet is suffering, and with environmental concerns fast becoming one of the defining issues of the 21st Century, finally the Government have agreed to plan to bring the country to Net Zero by 2050. As a small business, the impact of our work on the environment is admittedly small, however we believe that every little improvement we can make to reduce our Carbon Footprint is a move towards a brighter future for all our children. Therefore we have made a series of changes to the way we operate, and plan for even more changes soon. Below are a few of the small changes we have made, and some suggestions about how you can help to make a difference too! Fully recyclable prints We obviously hope you don't decide to throw your photos away, but we do have some waste at our lab, and therefore have recently moved to fully recyclable prints and ink. Our order confirmation slips are printed on the same paper, so feel free to pop them in the recycling bin at home. Reducing waste and printing by offering what our customers need Many of our competitors offer huge packs of multiple prints from one photo designed to send around to friends and family, but not everyone needs so many photos and several will get discarded as a result! We've been offering intelligent photo packages for years now. Just by choosing exactly which photos you want printed, and to a variety of sizes, and giving you a package volume discount, we'll be printing fewer photos that are not needed. Just the perfect pack for you.
Now, we still believe that everyone should have a beautiful framed print or Canvas adorning their home, however more and more people like their photos digitally. On their phones to view anytime, Ready to share on Facebook. They don't want prints, so we ensure they can buy digitals to suit their lifestyle. Reducing and improving our packaging waste We receive loads of deliveries from suppliers, in excellent boxes which we re-use to prevent ditching and creating waste. You might see we've popped an address label over a previously used hardbacked envelope, or you may receive your delivery in a repurposed Amazon box (did you know they have a whole team developing the perfect delivery cartons for low weight but first class protection? We're not going to let that effort disappear to landfill!) Sorry if it doesn't look 100% perfect... but it'll soon be forgotten and as long as the contents are intact, then who really minds, eh? We're also (slowly) moving to recyclable packing materials. You'll see lots more paper and cardboard soon, but whilst we still get bubblewrap from our suppliers, we figure we may just as well make as much use of it as possible!
There are some elements we've yet to crack, such as our plastic photo slips. We need your photos visible for easy distribution back at the School or Nursery, and they need to be kept safe from rain and children's drinks. As soon as we find a cost-effective alternative, we'll be switching them too!
Reducing our travel We know our Schools and Nurseries love to see us, and there was a time where we'd visit them constantly to drop off order forms, collect orders, deliver photos, arrange bookings, have a cuppa... That's a lot of travel! We're now changing our workflow to reduce the number of visits we make through the photo process. We've got a great Courier on board to make light of sending and receiving order forms. Final photo orders are couriered in batch to the School or Nursery, where requested by parents. And you'll begin to see more emails and fewer deliveries of marketing materials from us to help move the process along and reduce our delivery miles too!
Electric dreams We're slowly making moves to reduce our carbon footprint in the office. Our lighting is now 100% LED lighting (not cheap as we need daylight balanced bulbs for editing to stop little Johnny looking a bit peaky!) which are 80% more efficient than the old style bulb! And we've now taken delivery of a set of funky smart plugs, so we can switch everything off whenever we're not around, take our chargers off standby during the day... and we can hit the off switch from wherever we are if we realise we've forgotten! We've even switched to Smart radiator thingies so we can control our office heating too. It's the future, you know... Dropping plastic We've ditched the plastic water bottles that kept us hydrated throughout a long day of photographing. Check out our new stainless steel bottle! And of course, the much needed travel coffee mug too! No more trips to Costa for us! Recycle recycle recycle... We've signed up to Recycle4Charity, a fab company who take our old used inkjet cartridges and recycle them, with proceeds going to our chosen charity, the Starlight Children's Foundation who aim to preserve childhood throughout serious illness. As time progresses, you'll see more and more activity from us to move towards our aim of being carbon neutral. If you've any thoughts or ideas, do let us know! |
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