At the Klondyke Group we are conscious of our sustainability responsibilities and for this reason, have introduced recycling schemes at all of our sites for most of our waste generated; this includes the recycling of cardboard, paper, plastic, metal, wood etc.
Currently, 69% of our waste is recycled and we aim to further improve moving forward.
Where possible we bale all our cardboard to guarantee 100% recycling. Recycling cardboard produces 50% less sulphur dioxide than making cardboard from raw material.
Recycling with us
We offer a plastic plant pot and tray return service, encouraging our customers to drop off old or unwanted plastic pots and trays. We will then arrange for them to be recycled.
We also encourage our customers to recycle their old plastic compost bags instore or reuse them at home for storing compost and leaves or even transporting things to the dump.
We offer our coffee grounds to customers to use within their gardens and composting.
We encourage customers to use empty boxes and plant trays to carry their shopping home in. We offer bags for life which we will replace free of charge and are made from recycled plastic and are biodegradable.
We are working to introduce more products made out of recycled materials for our customers and highlight these to our customers.
As a business, we are working with our suppliers to reduce the amount of plastic we use.
All our pack bedding is in PET packs or taupe colour packs which are kerbside recyclable.
Pot bedding will be moved to a blue, terracotta or taupe-coloured pot to allow them to be recycled at the waste plants.
As a company, we will continue to drive the use of recycled or recyclable plastic and reduce plastic where possible.
Where possible, we bale on site all our plastic to guarantee 100% recycling. By recycling just one tonne of plastic, we save 5,700KW of energy, 685 gallons of oil and 30 cubic yards of landfill space.
At the Klondyke Group wherever possible we actively purchase our plant stock from British Growers.
Currently, around 84% of plants that we purchase are sourced from UK nurseries.
Help our environment by introducing more plants and trees to your garden and home.
Plants are our best friends in helping to reduce carbon – they capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into carbon to help create their leaves, branches and roots. We can help off-set our carbon emissions and mitigate climate change by simply creating a garden.
Small shrubs can absorb and store between 5 to 50kg of carbon over their lifetime. Hebe, Azaleas, Juniper and Spirea are good choices.
Large shrubs can absorb and store between 50 to 500kg of carbon over their lifetime. Why not try Camellia, Rhododendron, Viburnum and Ceanothus.
Garden trees can absorb and store between 500 to 3000kg of carbon over their lifetime. Why not try Acers, Fruit Trees, Liquid Amber and Prunus.
We are working to reduce the amount of energy we use and we are investing in more sustainable ways of powering our garden centres.
We generate power from our own solar installations in our Daleside, Byrkley Park, High Legh, Polmont, Mayfield, Holland Arms, Head Office and Burnside garden centres and are developing plans to introduce solar installations in more of our garden centres over the next few years.
We have installed energy efficient LED lighting in the majority of our garden centres and are currently trialing light sensors and timers.
We have partnered with PlanetMark who have certified our carbon footprint measurement. We actively measure and compare our energy usage between our garden centres and encourage a focus from our teams in adopting efficient working practices.
We support British growers and approximately 84% of our outdoor plants are British grown.
In our restaurants we offer vegetarian and vegan options on a daily basis which can help reduce our impact on the environment.
We have electric vehicle charging points at our Howdens, Houghton Hall, Garden Wise, Mortonhall and Head Office centres. We are assessing all of our garden centres to develop our plans for introducing customer electric vehicle charging points.
We are fully committed to environmental responsibility and share the concerns of gardeners, the horticultural industry and government towards peat extraction. We strive to be a peat-free business and support the continued search for alternative growing media.
Currently we do not sell sedge or moss peat in their unmixed forms.
Peat-free compost has a prominent position within our compost sales area.
We do not recommend the use of peat for mulching and top dressing.
All of the plants we sell are grown in peat-free or reduced-peat media; helping reduce our peat throughput.
At the current time, there is a shortage of reliable alternative raw materials to replace peat and the techniques for growing some plants and crops in peat-free mixes are not always straightforward.
We plan to offer customers a choice of peat-free composts.
We will continue to speak with our suppliers on the availability and use of reduced or peat free growing media.
We will continue to speak with our current and potential plant suppliers on the subject of reducing/removing the peat content from their products.
We will provide clear and up-to-date information and advice to customers who may be switching to peat-free and reduced-peat, so they can make informed decisions.
We will provide our team members with clear and up-to-date information on peat-free and reduced-peat and of our progress as a company on this.
We will continue to be aware of the environmental impact and sustainability of all potential peat substitutes, to ensure that we do not simply replace peat with something equally harmful to the environment.
We understand how precious water is and are working to reduce the amount of mains water we use.
We help our customers in saving water by offering a wide range of products such as water collection butts and timers for watering systems.
We provide information and education on plants that require less water and how to retain moisture in soil using mulch and soil enrichers.
We have rainwater harvesting tanks and use rainwater for irrigation in several of our garden centres.
We have capillary matting on our plant benches to ensure our watering is more efficient.
The Klondyke Group is committed to recognising and accepting the need to provide and manage a safe and environmentally responsible business.
The Group continually strives to improve its energy and water efficiency, reduce wastage, source product ethically and promote sustainable gardening throughout the business.
To implement this policy we intend to manage our environmental and sustainability efforts by seeking to achieve best practice as follows:
The Directors will continually monitor the implementation and effects of this policy in order to continually improve our environmental practice and performance