It didn’t start as part of our mission to be a sustainable business but it very quickly became apparent that what we were creating was having an impact on the environment. When you start a health and beauty business a lot of waste can come with the process, from testing products to waste packaging it all adds up. We are trying hard to be the change we want to see. Here are some of our sustainability ideas for your eco-friendly business. 

We looked at all the different ways we could not only help lessen our environmental impact but also add value to the world. We’ve set out some of those below and heading into 2021 we’re making even more progress to change how we work, in line with our motto, be the change you wish to see. 

Reducing Waste:

Not just a bonus for the environment but also for your budget. Business waste disposal costs UK businesses up to 4% of their turnover, with a quarter of all England’s waste being generated by businesses that’s a huge amount of money and waste being thrown away. We make sure that everything we can is reduced, recycled, or reused. We make small product batches, not just for quality control but also to prevent product wastage, and are striving to be a plastic-free business changing our packaging to help others with this.

In our current office build, we’re trying hard not to buy new, instead, everything has been recycled or reused, and we can’t wait to show you some of our unique decorations.

Conserving Energy:

Bringing down energy usage can be difficult but using a smart meter helps to show which devices eat up the most power. Part of moving our business home was to decrease the wasted warehouse space we were heating and lighting.  With small batch making, we didn’t need a huge storage area and found we only used a tiny amount of the space we were paying to power. 

Look at an energy audit for your business, are you using all your business space to its full potential or using up environmental resources to heating and light unused space? 

Giving Back: As part of our commitment to helping our environment, we plant 3 trees each month with Tomorrow’s Forests to offset our carbon footprint. Carbon offsetting is a great way to pay it back to the environment. Follow them to discover how you can help build our UK forests back up and reduce our impact on the planet.

We are committed to helping create a better environment for bees, a crucial part of our ecosystem, and will be incorporating seed paper into many of our products. This simple slip of paper can be planted and grow essential pollen flowers for our native bees. 

This Summer we’ll be collaborating with Simply Seeds to hold a Sunflower growing competition with a huge gift for the winner. It will see giant sunflowers across the country helping provide food for bees and birds, as well as boosting positive mental wellbeing for the growers. 

Packaging:

We only print out documents if completely necessary, and buy recycled ink cartridges. Our packaging materials when we send out products are all recyclable and biodegradable. In the future, we’ll be looking at reducing our packaging down further. Our bath bombs are packaged in 100% biodegradable film, and we’ve replaced our plastic pots for glass. With our latest product release, we took this a step further, our Brewed Soap range comes wrapped in Seed Paper (also being added to bath bomb labels) which can be planted to grow a bee-friendly wildflower patch.

Our Products:

When we set out to create a beauty range we knew we wanted it to be cruelty-free, as we looked at our supply chain for ingredients, we chose to be vegan and palm oil free. We’re constantly looking and reviewing our products and considering the impact they create, such as our Mica powder and where our herbs and oils come from.   This year we are taking this one step further by tightening our supply chain, even more, we will be growing our own herbs and flowers for our products. This allows us to reduce their travel miles, reduce the packaging they would have arrived in and guarantee their organic quality.  

Thank you for following our Essench journey and the sustainable changes we’re making, follow us on Instagram to keep in touch, and we’d love you to comment with any changes you’ve made to sustainability.