From building the right relationships with suppliers to reducing waste, we're constantly finding innovative ways of making our products more sustainable.

Being a developer as well as a retailer, gives us a unique understanding of what goes into our products, where the materials come from, how they are made and how our customers can use and dispose of/recycle them. 

By thinking creatively about every stage of that journey, we constantly find new and innovative ways of making our products more sustainable – customers expect nothing less from us.

The whole package

We really care about the impact our products have, from the initial sourcing of raw materials right through to end of life. That's why our own brand and exclusive products are assessed using our internal Product Sustainability Assessment Process. It's a new assessment, unique to us, that measures the sustainability of products across more than 24 different criteria, asking questions such as, 'Is the packaging recyclable?', 'Are the ingredients naturally derived?' and 'What are the impacts when the product is used?'.

In trials, this approach helped us to cut our Christmas 2009 packaging by a massive 1,400 tonnes. We did even better in 2010, using 13% less plastic and 6% less disposable cardboard. We also made more of our packs recyclable and used 44% more recycled materials in our packaging. And we cut down on the packaging we use to transport products to stores by over 150 tonnes.