GOING GREEN
NEW SUSTAINABLES, PLEASE
EXEAT is a luxury, sustainable tennis apparel brand for women launched by entrepreneur and tennis enthusiast, Laura Ward.
Laura saw a niche in the market for chic, fashion-led tennis attire with beautifully cut, flattering items, but with a focus on sustainability.
EXEAT is now the UK’ s most exported luxury sustainable tennis brand and is in the top 1 per cent of sustainable fashion brands globally.
Instead of using traditional sportswear fabrics made from‘ fossil fuel guzzling yarns’, EXEAT creates its sustainable cloth from recycled ocean plastics and textile waste destined for landfill.
This allows the company to halve its carbon emissions, reduce water consumption by 80 per cent and pioneer circular manufacturing, making it one of the most sustainable brands in sport,
Laura said,“ We create every piece in our collection from pioneering ecological fabric with an ultra-low carbon footprint, making us one of the kindest brands in sport.
“ In a world where just 1 per cent of fashion brands are sustainable, we’ re raising the game.
“ Looking ahead our aim is to maintain EXEAT’ s position in the top 1 per cent of sustainable fashion brands globally, thanks to our pioneering sustainable fabric and awardwinning factories.
“ We will continue to innovate and this coming year we’ re investing in some hugely exciting emerging eco-technologies around fabric, cotton and water reduction which will future proof our supply chain.
“ Green is the future of fashion!”
For more info: www. exeatweekend. com
" EXEAT creates its sustainable cloth from recycled ocean plastics and textile waste destined for landfill "
SENDING PACKAGING PACKING
Packaging Not Included is part of a new wave of supermarkets with an aim to end excess packaging and minimise the impact of consumer habits.
The shop essentially acts as a refill station. Customers visit the store, choose their desired products and either bring their own containers to fill or use the paper bags provided.
Packaging Not Included’ s stock list includes flours and sugars, pastas and grains, dried fruit and chocolates, nuts and seeds, herbs and cereals, beans and pulses, spices and coffee, as well as eco-friendly household cleaning and personal care products.
All the store’ s produce is organic, ethically produced and responsibly transported, encouraging people to think more about where their food is from and how far it has travelled.
Founder Hayley Lambert said,“ My passions for organic food, sustainability, a healthy lifestyle and the need to reduce our impact on the environment came together to inspire me to open a zero-waste shop. Everything sold in our store is organic and Fairtrade and foods are traceable from farm to fork. It is important to us to know exactly where our food is coming from and that it hasn’ t been air freighted. Many of our products travel less than 20 miles with seasonal fruit, vegetables and eggs from Purton House Organics, honey from Wiltshire Bee Centre and rapeseed oil from local firm Gears’ Oil.
“ As a business concerned with the green agenda it was important for us to embrace sustainability in all areas of our work, assessing our impact on the environment and striving for continual improvement.
“ I received support from the Growth Hub around this and attended a Growing Your Green Strategy workshop and as a direct result we have implemented changes including upgrading the shop’ s lighting to LED; challenging suppliers about packaging that we are unhappy with; reducing the frequency of our longer-distance deliveries; and reducing deliveries by buying in the largest quantities that we can manage
“ We have also signed up to the United Nations Climate Neutral Now initiative and achieved the Climate Neutral Now badge. This is a great thing to be able to share with customers to tell the story of what we are doing as a business to reduce our impact.
“ Our future plan is to keep expanding our product range based on what our customers would like to see. I plan to organise a‘ Great Big Green Week’( Climate Coalition initiative) in Marlborough in collaboration with the community, including the local independent cinema. I would also like to start some‘ Sustainable Social’ evenings and design a Carbon Literacy course.
“ These things might encourage new people into the shop, but importantly, they will hopefully help to inspire people to make changes towards a greener, lower carbon life and empower them to push for changes that they would like to see, whether that’ s at home, in their child’ s school or at work.
“ It’ s really exciting to be a green business at the moment, we need everyone on board with carbon reduction.”
For more info: www. packagingnotincluded. co. uk
“ It’ s really exciting to be a green business at the moment, we need everyone on board with carbon reduction.”
THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2022 19