As a family company that has enjoyed over 50 years of doing business in the heart of the Sussex countryside, we feel strongly that businesses, and manufacturers in particular, should do all they can to reduce their environmental impact. Over the past few years we have implemented the first stages of our plan to see G&G Vitamins become one of the most environmentally-friendly supplement brands in the country.

BECOMING A GREEN SUPPLEMENT COMPANY

Our first step was to implement a robust recycling network throughout the company. Simply by making recycling bins available in every area and training staff on our policies, we have been able to decrease our waste-to-landfill by 80% (by volume) over the past year. We intend to continue to improve and monitor this, ensuring our waste-to-landfill is always at an absolute minimum. Concurrently we have implemented in-house reuse of packaging materials, reducing our post-industrial and pre-consumer waste by over 70%.

Our next step was to improve our consumer shipping waste. In 2020 we switched all of our packaging to fully-recyclable materials from recycled sources, right down to our tape and space fillers. This includes our shipping bags, which are fully biodegradable. We've also established a carbon-neutral delivery network for our vitamins and continue to look for ways to improve this.

OUR BRAND NEW BIODEGRADABLE TUBS & LABELS

In 2022 we are so pleased to be able to roll out our brand new 100% biodegradable tubs and labels. The base material for these new tubs is a vegetal-origin polymer obtained from starch and sugar cane fermentation, making it a renewable source material. This raw material comes from excess sugar capacity in developing countries in South-East Asia, helping farmers in rural areas with more stable sugar prices.

During the manufacture of our new tubs, the carbon footprint is approximately 75% lower than the carbon footprint of conventional plastic bottles and 90% of a glass bottle.

After the tub has fullfilled its life as a supplement tub, it can be reused or composted. The optimal treatment is composting. In this case, 90% of the packaging will have biodegraded in 6 months or less.

GOING PAPERLESS

Recently, we've had the confidence to reduce our paper waste further by no longer including paper invoices with our orders. Invoices for orders are now sent electronically and can be found within your account online. 

WE RUN ON 100% GREEN ENERGY

Over 2 years ago now we completed our switch-over to the greenest energy source in Britain. Not only is all of our energy 100% green, our supplier uses wind and sun energy to provide the only Vegan Society approved energy in the country. For more information click here. This means that every capsule that comes out of our ISO Class 8 cleanroom has been made with clean, renewable energy – a UK first (as far as we can tell).

OUR FUTURE AS A GREEN SUPPLEMENT COMPANY

This is just the start. We intend to continue to explore every possible avenue to reduce our carbon footprint and be the greenest vitamin brand around. In 2022, our commitment to greener supplements is going to take a big leap. We hope you are excited about our next big announcement as we are. Our goal is to do our bit to help the environment and keep our little slice of British countryside thriving for generations to come.