Environmental Policy

We take great pride in being a sustainable and environmentally friendly business. Our work at reducing our carbon footprint has earned us both a Gold Level Carbon Charter and a place in the Archant Green 100 list of sustainable businesses.

 

Through our work with the organisations mentioned above, we have pledged to reduce our carbon footprint by 5% year on year and we are achieving this with the measures in the list below.

  • Our two reservoirs mean we are 100% self-sufficient for water. Rainwater is collected from the nursery and filtered using Norfolk reeds then cleaned with chlorine before being reused on our stock beds.

 

This creates a wonderful habitat for wildlife. Our nursery is home to all manner of birds including owls and cormorants which feed on the carp and tench in our reservoir. We also have a snake which lives in the compost. All of these contribute to the unique and varied ecosystem of the nursery.

 

  • Patches of wildflowers attract pollinators for our plants. We also keep bees around the nursery which promote natural pollination of our plants and produce a wonderful honey for our staff.

 

  • Installing LED lights which are activated by motion sensors means we only use the energy we need. This measure alone saves 6.2 tonnes of CO2 per year.

 

  • An array of solar panels provide energy for our various production and dispatch areas. These satisfy 50% of our energy needs and even feed back into the national grid.

 

  • Our greenhouse team breed insects for biological control of insects and pests. This reduces the amount of pesticides we use and prevents them building up in our water system.

 

  • As part of our ongoing efforts to reduce our carbon footprint, improve efficiency and staff wellbeing, we have purchased 3 electric buggies to transport containerised plants across the nursery.

 

  • Capturing the power generated by our Solar PV panels to be utilised by the nursery, is an exciting progressive step towards reducing our environmental impact through sustainable processes. A Tesla Powerwall 2 has been installed.

 

  • When boxed plants leave our Dispatch Department, they are carefully packaged with paper from local businesses’ waste streams that has been shredded here at the nursery. We also shred the backing paper from our order label sheets.

 

The boxes are lined with used newspapers dropped off by our local community.

 

The brown boxes in which we dispatch bare-root plants are un-bleached, leaving a kinder impact upon the environment.