FERO OPINION PIECE - SUSTAINABILITY

IT’S TIME FOR OUR INDUSTRY TO STOP GREENWASHING AND TAKE ACTION

Over the last few years, we have seen a significant increase in awareness of the serious situation the world faces due to climate change, and it’s clear that behaving in a sustainable fashion will gain yet further momentum in 2022.

COP26 in November 2021 helped bring the environment to the forefront of the agenda, even if the most read news story was about wheelchair access! As the dust settles on the agreement, the aim to stop the Earth’s temperature from rising by more than 1.5 degrees seems pragmatic rather than ambitious, time will tell whether further action will be needed. It is past time for us as an industry to also act in a meaningful way, not with just headline grabbing soundbites and ultimately ineffective gimmicks.

By sharing some of the changes we have already made, and plan to take, we hope to provide brands and retailers with ideas for demanding more from their POS suppliers.

SUSTAINABILITY IN HISTORY

Originally, ‘sustainability’ meant only making such use of natural, renewable resources that people could continue to rely on their yields in the long term. The concept of sustainability can be traced back to Hans Carl von Carlowitz (1645–1714) and was first applied to forestry. However, the idea itself goes back much further; communities have always worried about the capacity of their environment to sustain them.

The traditions and belief systems of indigenous people mean they regard nature with deep respect and have a strong sense of place and belonging. This sustains knowledge and ways of life that match up well with modern notions of nature conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources.

Modern use of the term really begins with the UN Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission, set up in 1983. According to Our Common Future (also known as the Brundtland Report), sustainable development is defined as development that ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ Something that has been well debated during COP26.

SUSTAINABILITY AND FERO

At FERO, we focus on clear talking and delivering measurable actions – and we apply this approach to sustainability. As a business we want sustainability to be a part of the way we work and think – it is not a strategy or a proposition, just fundamental to our business operations.

To understand how we can improve, we need to understand where we are now. To that end we have embarked on a partnership with CarbonQuota to ensure we have an independent benchmark of our carbon footprint. Our manufacturing processes are measured in line with the Government’s SECR Scope 1 and 2 GHG reporting requirements, enabling us to set on-going meaningful targets for improvement.

Our clients are all focused on reducing their impact on the planet and we are collaborating closely with them to remove plastics from the supply chain. In the last year we have reduced PVC volumes by 65% and halved the usage of Foamex PVC, all by offering more sustainable alternatives – and importantly, those easily understood as sustainable to store staff.

What is the point of swapping PVC for Polypropylene if store staff don’t understand the difference, and so it all ends up in the same waste channel? There is actually a benefit as, unlike PVC, Polypropylene doesn’t emit chlorine when burnt, however current recycling technologies, and a decentralised UK government recycling strategy, mean we are unable to separate the multitude of differing plastics effectively. One could say there’s ‘no point’ when in reality all plastic types are inevitably still converted to Energy from Waste – burnt in the UK or even compacted and shipped to the EU to be burnt.

Aside from debating the effectiveness of substituting plastics, we have also invested in multiple product and process development projects which have resulted in the launch of an FSDU which is fully recyclable and approved by Tesco Design Council, as well as introducing lower carbon intensive end-to-end supply chain models with our partners.

Additional recent initiatives include modernising our printing processes through installing process-less plates to reduce water consumption, vastly reducing our consumption of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) containing chemicals that are a part of the traditional platemaking process and installing charging points for Hybrid and Electric vehicles.

We also welcome the new guidance set out recently by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in their Green Claims Code. This will ensure everyone is making accurate, factual claims that demonstrate meaningful improvements rather than filling the space with gimmicks and over exaggerated statements. The CMA investigated the impact of green marketing on consumers in 2020 and found that around 40% of green claims made online could be misleading.

In this spirit of openness, we know we are not perfect and can always be doing more. To push our standards further still in 2022 we have begun work on attaining B-Corps status because, for us, sustainability is not just about our manufacturing and materials used, but the welfare of all our stakeholders, whether internal or external, involved or just affected by our actions.

Process and policy changes and seeking to deliver real and meaningful end-to-end supply chain improvements don’t grab headlines like overstated and oversimplified claims, but we believe this is where genuine significant progress will be made on a day-to-day basis.