Environment and Sustainability

Statement

At Woodmansterne, we are committed to using sustainable materials and practices wherever possible. As a third-generation family business, we understand better than anyone the importance of protecting our environment and safeguarding it for future generations. We are continually looking to learn, adapt and improve where we can by working closely with the best suppliers and investing in skills and technologies.

We source the very best quality boards from specialist paper mills in Europe to make our greeting cards and only use FSC® certified pulp from responsibly-managed forests to ensure our supply is sustainable and environmentally friendly. You can spot the FSC logo on all of our cards. [FSC® licence no - FSC® C003052].

• We are proud to use only FSC® certified board. Further details can be found here.
• We are regularly reviewing and exploring the best ways to source paper in as efficient and environmentally-friendly manner as possible, while not compromising on quality.

For over 30 years, we believed that the best way to protect a card was to wrap it in a glass-clear polypropylene bag. Although the bag was recyclable, it soon became clear that all film (good or bad) ends up in landfill, so now, bagged cards are simply not an option for us.

We are delighted to introduce our new ‘Smart Seal’ packaging, eliminating the need for plastic outer wrapping. Launched in March 2019, our seal which holds the envelope with the card, is made from paper and takes us one step closer to becoming completely plastic waste free.

Learn more here.

By the end of 2020, the aim is that all of our cards can be fully recycled, with the majority being fully recyclable now. As well as always trying to make our products as easy to recycle as possible, we have also begun labelling products and packaging to help consumers recycle effectively.

• ‘Recycle me’ is a new message you’ll see on our products. This means exactly what it says! You can fully recycle the card and the envelope wherever this message appears.
• We are delighted that the ‘Recycle me’ logo has now been adopted by ‘Recycle Now’, the Government funded and supported recycling campaign for England.
• Throughout 2020 we will be phasing out our glittered cards to enable yet more recycling to take place.

In 2016, we began working with an expert mill in Italy to create a bespoke paper made from post consumer waste. As a result of only using this 100% recycled pulp to make our envelope and insert paper, we are able to save over 5,000 trees a year.

• No trees were cut down to create our envelopes and inserts
• This recycled paper still meets all of our bespoke requirements of colour, weight, texture and translucency (to prevent the card showing through the envelope)

We manufacture all of our cards entirely in the UK: from the design, print and finish, through to the packing and distribution. By running our own award-winning manufacturing facility, we ensure high-quality results and less waste.

• We manufacture in the UK not in the Far East, vastly reducing our product’s carbon footprint.
• Our two working sites are well situated to utilise local expertise and are less than 40 miles apart. Keeping close to main distribution hubs of key retailers helps in minimising carbon footprint from transportation.
• We source all of our key materials from suppliers with whom we have close working relationships. This helps maintain a stable, efficient and reliable supply chain, crucial to ensuring our exacting standard of high-quality results and minimal waste.

At Woodmansterne, we are passionate recyclers, and have worked hard to reduce the waste from our sites in Watford and Milton Keynes with now just 6% going to landfill.  One of the best ways to reduce the impact we have on the environment is to be as efficient as possible. We do this by:

• Investing in people and their training
• Investing in equipment, and
• Ironing out inefficiencies to reduce lead times and waste.

We have reduced our internal transportation carbon footprint by 56% since 2016, by investing in new processes.

• In 2016, we successfully trialled an innovative transport solution from The Netherlands, which enables uneven pallets to be stacked on top of one another during transportation.
• By investing in 40 of these units, we have halved our annual transport costs and carbon footprint, helping the business and in turn, the environment. Several of our suppliers and customers have been inspired to follow suit.