Environmental/ Sustainability policy

The Eco Boutique is a privately owned company specialising in the sale of gifts, homewares, refills and second hand products online and in-store. 

We recognise the importance of sustainable development and will work with our clients to ensure that our projects meet their sustainability requirements.

Environment
We are committed to continually looking for ways to reduce our impact on the environment and working to prevent pollution. We pay particular attention to waste minimisation and resource efficiency and ensure we source sustainable materials where practically and economically feasible.

Products: - 

We are committed to continuously learning and providing products that are as a eco-friendly as practicable. Where they are not 100% sustainable it's important they are a kinder alternative to help reduce waste on a larger scale whilst being affordable. 

Our clothing exchange scheme seeks to reduce clothing books and toys going to waste by offering a place to drop it all off to trade in for store credit. We have a policy in terms of what we can accept and offer to recycle clothing no longer fit for purpose on the customers behalf to prevent textiles going to waste. 

If products / displays are no longer required these are either sold on or donated to ensure a new lease of life. 

Packaging: - 

We seek to stock products from suppliers who are mindful about the packaging they use and are seeking ways to reduce this. Any packaging from deliveries is kept and reused through donation of boxes to facilitate house moves or utilized for future deliveries to our customers so nothing is single use with a note asking them to re-use. We keep any bubble wrap and use this for filling items such as bags for display and removed during the sale to ensure no plastic pollution. 

We are always reviewing our packaging to ensure we are eliminating any non essential items. 

Power: -
We are a single powered site (electric) powered by reusable energy and ensure that we are using power responsibility by ensuring our tills and lights are off when not in use. Use of energy efficient light bulbs. Using energy saving feature on our night storage heaters and only having the lights required as opposed to all lights on.

Water: - We are always seeking new ways to reduce our usage. We clean our windows using white vinegar in a spray as opposed to water. We have surface cleaners that don't require this usage and ensuring we are only using what's required. Dealing with any water leaks in a timely manner

We take the Government’s aim to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted very seriously. We are looking at ways to minimise our carbon emissions. We have an Environmental Policy/Management System and we are working to achieve the ISO14001 standard.

Our People
We are committed to providing a safe working environment that focuses on the prevention of injury and ill health. We believe that everyone has a role to play in creating a safe working environment for themselves, those they work with and also ensuring that the public are not endangered by any of our activities.

We recognize the value of our employees and work with them to develop their potential and to increase their competence through regular training. Where possible we recruit our staff locally to support the local economy. 

Community
The communities in which we operate can be affected by our projects and we work towards mitigating the potential nuisance of our activities. Where required by clients, we work to the Considerate Constructors standard.

We work to ensure that we interact positively with the communities in which we operate. Effective communication is important so that all those who work for us or on our behalf are aware of their responsibilities to ensure a high standard of environmental and community care is maintained.

Process
We are committed to improving the effectiveness of our management systems in order to provide opportunities to maximise our delivery performance to all stakeholders  

Finally we are aware that the livelihoods of our staff and, to some extent, our suppliers and sub-contractors depend on our continued existence. This is best served by our continued commitment to ensuring great quality products and service to our customers.