This year’s World Earth Day theme, “Invest in Our Planet,” focuses on inspiring governments, businesses and citizens to combat climate change.
At Chelmsford Star we are committed to helping our environment, here are just some of the actions we have taken so far…
Our Products:
- Co-op led the way by replacing plastic stems on cotton buds with paper (11years ago)
- Removed plastic microbeads from our home and beauty products several years ago
- Aiming for 80% of all food packaging to be recyclable by 2020, with a longer-term aim to be 100%
- First to trial first fully compostable teabags for iconic 99 tea bags (breaks down completely in food waste collections)
- This year we’re switching all our bottled water to 50% recycled plastic and will be 100% recyclable
Our Chelmsford clean-up event 2021
Our Society:
- We have achieved a reduction in energy consumption by over 25% in the last five years. (March 2021) This has been achieved through colleague engagement and investment in technologies, such as LED lighting, which is now installed in all food stores across the estate.
- Food waste redistributed in two of our stores
- 99% of our rubbish is recycled
- Encourage clothes recycling (in conjunction with the salvation army) at 6 locations
- Carrier bags are biodegradable and made from recycled materials such as drinks bottles
- From 1st January 2021, the Society moved our energy supplier to a green tariff. Electricity is generated from REGO backed renewable sources, with power used in our stores coming from five onshore wind projects that the Co-operative Group helped to develop, which combined provide approximately 15% of our energy per annum. The remaining volumes are derived from Scottish Power’s Whitelee wind farm near Glasgow. In 2021, the Society made further commitments relating to managing and mitigating our carbon footprint
- In 2021, the Society switched to compostable bags in our food stores, replacing the current bag for life vest carrier
- We host a number of clean-up events in our local communities. Our next Chelmsford event will take place on Friday 29th July 2022.
