How Sundry Supplies are striving for carbon reduction

Find out what we're doing to help reduce our impact on the environment

Here at Sundry Supplies, we are a business that is committed to providing you with ethical and sustainable supplies for your workplace. We are eco-conscious and have various policies in place for reducing the environmental impact of our business, helping to reducing our carbon footprint in new and innovative ways. 

Carbon Neutral Goals for Ireland

Ireland is set to become carbon free by 2050, with the aim of reducing carbon production by 7% every year for the next 10 years. With targets for each sector of the economy, it will reshape the economy with a shift to decarbonisation, creating renewable energy along with creating jobs and a circular economy.

Our Carbon Reduction Goals

We have created a Sustainability Policy which details our aims for reducing carbon as a business. This plan includes:

Power Management

Power Management is to be enabled on all PCs, laptops and print equipment, saving energy whilst not in use.

Print Minimisation

Unless a hard copy is absolutely required, we use electronic devices to display and share information. Where printing is essential, we choose double sided and black and white. We have switched our account systems to e-invoicing. This complies with our Environmental Policy and has also made our invoicing system much more efficient for our customers.

Recycling and Reducing Waste

We promote the use of shredders for shredding all wastepaper to minimise the amount of waste from our paper use. To assist our customers, we offer online ordering and digital catalogues as a paper-free alternative. We have also switched to e-invoicing to save paper and the carbon associated with delivering invoices.

All manilla envelopes are manufactured from 100% recycled paper and have a minimum of 100% post-consumer waste. All white envelopes are made from paper produced from sustainable forests and are fully certified for the Chain of Custody of FSC & PEFC paper. Chain of Custody is the unbroken path which products take from the forest to the customer, including all stages of manufacturing, transformation and distribution.

Our deliveries are packaged in 95% recycled Kraft boxes. We have eliminated all single use plastics from our website.

Our buyers guide is printed on 51gsm Galerie lite paper which is chlorine free and produced from managed forests. We also offer a range of digital catalogues and mailers for our customers to download.

We recycle more than 80% of all the material we receive and our waste is handled by a commerical waste management company. All pallets are returned or recycled. We use Panda to ensure our waste is reused, repurposed or recycled.

We also offer our customers a toner and ink cartridge recycling service with a collection box available to store used items prior to collection.

Equipment Maintenance

All operating equipment is serviced on a yearly basis. This ensures that equipment operates within specification and at an optimal use of energy and other resources.

Lights off Policy

Staff are required to turn lights off whenever rooms are unoccupied and upon leaving the building. All our internal lighting is environmentally friendly; we use energy saving lightbulbs throughout the building. We use light sensors to ensure no lights are left on accidentally. This ensures that equipment operates within specification and at an optimal use of energy and other resources. 

Heating and Energy

Thermostats are installed to maintain appropriate heating levels within several separate heating zones on our premises. We are also looking into Photovoltaic panels on the roof of our building to reduce our reliance on the grid.

Transportation

Staff are encouraged to share or combine journeys where possible to minimise the costs and resources associated with driving. We encourage employees to consider their work and lifestyle choices such as using public transport to commute to and from to work thereby reducing carbon footprint.

Our van routes are optimised to deliver on specific days and within the same areas to minimise fuel usage an maximise energy efficiency.

Ethical Suppliers

We buy from a number of ethical suppliers who are striving to be carbon neutral or have been GreenTag certified, such as our SitStand desk manufacturer. We continally promote eco friendly alternatives to our customers. 

Our Manufacturer’s Environmental Manual forms part of the Integrated Policy Manual which comprises of formal procedures in respect of:

• ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Systems
• ISO 14001: 2015 Environment Management Systems
• ISO 4500:2018 Occupational Health and Safety Management

Education and Training

We are continually updating our procedures to reduce the amount of carbon we produce as a business in line with government and industry advice. We adopt the principles set out by the Carbon Fund. We have a training program for staff to educate around carbon reduction and have employed an external consultant to help achieve a carbon neutral position.

If you would like more information on how we are striving to become carbon neutral, then please view our Sustainability Policy.