Banner Blog

We all need to become more environmentally conscious, so there’s a greater focus than ever on workplace sustainability. Trying to find greener products, and making sure they truly are better than the alternatives, is a complex task. 

Julie Hadley, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager at Banner, explains what she looks for in green workplace products…

Once you’ve acknowledged that you really do need to make a purchase and other options have been exhausted, you’re in a prime position to swap to a cleaner, greener alternative, but choosing one product over another can be a headache.

There has been a lot of talk around sustainability, and for some people it can become overwhelming.

But with environmental focus becoming something we need, rather than want, to implement into a business it can be a mammoth job to tackle. So where do you begin?

There are a lot of areas of focus in creating a more eco-conscious workplace - from everyday tasks like remembering to turn your monitors and the lights off, to keeping recycling bins in the breakrooms and kitchens. However, there are also areas of sustainability that require a longer period of time to implement, like a greener commute to work or switching to more sustainable products.

Here are 4 easy ways to you create a more sustainable workplace:

With Plastic Free July now over, Julie Hadley, CSR and Social Value Manager at Banner, shares the wins, challenges, and reflections that occurred in her household throughout the month of cutting down on plastic waste.

You might expect, given my role, that I’d be a paragon of virtue, but like everyone else I’m time poor and with two teens in the house, I sometimes feel I’m on a hiding to nothing when it comes to the amount of plastic passing through here! It’s harder than you think to go plastic free and requires a real behaviour change, but with my two girls now on board, I’m quite pleased with the result.

The trigger was guilt, especially with the knowledge that lots of plastics are ‘wish-cycled’ – you pop it in the recycling and hope your local authority deals with it! Often though, the plastic we put for recycling goes for incineration, so the only way to deal with it was to cut down what I brought into the house.

Given that I’m the one doing most of the shopping, the buck stops with me…

Plastic free July was a good opportunity to tackle my mixed waste recycling output.  Our general waste is pretty minimal (around half to a third of a tall wheelie bin per fortnight) as I employ the following strategies:

• A compost bin in my garden for all fruit and veg peelings and cores
• Little cooked food waste as I plan food with portions and either freeze or leave any left-overs for lunch next day
• Salad drawer soup/stock to use up end of life veg and salad
• Cardboard and paper are recycled separately
• Plastics, cans and bottles are mixed separated from other waste and put in to mixed recycling
• Batteries and electricals I pop to one side for a visit to the local recycling centre
• Soft films and bags are recycled at my supermarket

With the above as my start point, I had a look at the mixed recycling bin contents and I’m sad to admit that our mixed recycling was 2 bins a fortnight, this included all glass, plastic and cans, of which I’d say plastic made up half.

Harrods, the world-famous luxury department store, has solved one of its biggest headaches by diverting tonnes of its used paper hand towels from general waste.

Having already reduced Harrods' waste by replacing its paper hand towel product with a more absorbent alternative, Banner identified Kimberly-Clark Professional’s RightCycle service as a circular solution for paper towel sustainability.

In the fight against climate change, every little helps. For businesses, little changes across the board can have a big overall impact. Below, Julie Hadley, CSR and Social Value Manager at Banner, discusses green products you could swap out to create a more sustainable office.

Banner is delighted to offer the full range of environmentally friendly Hey Girls period products 

Banner is delighted to offer the full range of environmentally friendly Hey Girls period products. With plastic free, vegan, Phythalate & BPA free and certified organic materials, Hey Girls also plays a large part in avoiding the issue of period poverty in the UK. They are an award-winning ‘buy one, donate one’ social enterprise, producing environmentally-friendly period products. A Scottish community interest company, Hey Girls was initially established in 2018 by Celia Hodson and her two daughters Kate and Bec as a kitchen table start up, after experiencing period poverty themselves.

In today's world, moving to more sustainable product choices is a key focus for many businesses. But actually identifying the best and most sustainable products can be tricky. 

At Banner, we’ve been offering a great selection of sustainable products for many years throughout our catalogues and online offering. But the 2021 launch of our ‘Green Choice’ symbol makes the selection of sustainable products much quicker and easier for you.