Greenwood is named “Sustainable Business of the Year”!
Celebrating our great achievement as
we strive to become carbon neutral
We are delighted to have been named ‘Sustainable Business of the Year’ at the 2022 Central South Business Awards last week. The awards ceremony was hosted by star of ITV’s hit show The Chase, Paul Sinha, and recognised the outstanding achievements of the region’s business community. Our Sales & Marketing Director, Melanie Asker, and Marketing Manager, Ellie Coutts, collected the trophy, sponsored by Business South, at the glittering awards ceremony, held at the Hilton Ageas Bowl in Southampton.
The ‘Sustainable Business of the Year’ award recognises the pioneering sustainability practices that we have established across the business, exercising responsible planetary stewardship, and demonstrating sustainability leadership by applying innovative processes and techniques to minimise our imprint on the planet. Over the past year, we have launched our new sustainability strategy and initiated several practices to use resources efficiently, reduce waste, encourage biodiversity, and improve our carbon footprint – such as switching diesel forklifts and other vehicles to electric, reducing waste, recycling water, and using biodegradable sundries.
A big focus and challenge for us has been committing to being fully peat-free by the end of 2023; years ahead of anticipated industry regulation. Our nurseries are currently carrying out extensive trials with alternative growing media to support our annual production of more than six million plants. To reduce our reliance on external water sources, we have invested in water harvesting and collection systems, as well as state of the art sprinkler systems, enabling most of our nurseries to be fully sustainably watered.
In order to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, we launched our innovative G Cycle scheme in 2021. G Cycle encourages our clients to return their crates, pallets and pots, thus creating a shared standard of sustainability within the supply chain. G Cycle collected a staggering 15,000 crates and pallets in its first year—an impressive 72% return rate. We also work closely with the local community as part of our Greenwood Community scheme, donating plants to schools, charities and village gardens, to create green community spaces with enhanced biodiversity.
Sustainability is one of our brand values and the G Team have embraced their role in contributing to our sustainability goals. We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved so far and this award is great recognition of an excellent team effort across the business.
If you’d like to find out more about our sustainability efforts, check out our Sustainability page.