Our Sustainability Journey
At Greenwood we care about sustainability, and are working to actively reduce our carbon footprint, improve our local communities and environment, and exercise responsible planetary stewardship.
Planetary stewardship
We have developed a new sustainability strategy to shape our future development, and ensure we meet our environmental and sustainability goals. We are a sustainability award-winner and our focus is on pioneering new sustainability practices to use resources efficiently, reduce waste, encourage biodiversity and improve our carbon footprint.
Growing Greener
Becoming carbon neutral is an important aim for us, and our sustainable practices will help us to achieve this goal—from the vast number of plants we grow each year, to the electric vehicles across our nurseries.
G Cycle
G Cycle reduces the amount of waste going to landfill and helps to preserve valuable resources, by encouraging our clients to return their crates, pallets and pots, and creating a shared standard of sustainability within the supply chain.
Greenwood Community
Our community scheme involves donating a number of plants to local charities, schools, village gardens and other community organisations, to create green community spaces with enhanced biodiversity.
Long term sustainability targets
%
Peat-free growing and purchasing
%
Renewable energy usage
%
CO2 reduction
%
G Cycle rate
Community projects per year
24
%
Water self-sufficient
Peat-free growing
Following extensive trials at our nurseries over 18 months, we are now a 100% peat-free grower, across all six of our UK nursery sites. As growers of around six million plants a year, our peat-free goal was a huge undertaking, but a challenge the G team fully embraced.
G Cycle
Our innovative recycling scheme to reuse crates, pallets and pots in order to maximise the use of our resources, and to promote a circular economy and responsible planetary stewardship. Each crate, pallet or pot may not seem much on its own, but they each contribute towards the bigger picture of reducing our impact on the environment.
Greenwood Community
Greenwood in the Community involves us donating hundreds of plants to various community projects—such as schools, mental health charities and village gardens. Plants provide a whole host of lasting benefits to the environment, such as absorbing carbon dioxide to improve air quality, increasing biodiversity and encouraging wildlife.
Water conservation
When it comes to water, we are taking as many steps as possible to recycle and reduce wastage across all of our nurseries. Recycling water is an excellent way to make a positive impact on our climate, therefore, we tackle any hose leaks as quickly as we can and utilise a combination of methods to reduce the amount of mains water we use, such as collecting water from wells and streams.
Electric vehicles
Electric vehicles have significant benefits for emissions and greatly reduce air pollution; therefore, we are in the process of switching our diesel forklifts to electric across our nurseries. Our sustainability plans also involve changing our fleet to vehicles with ultra-low emissions, to help reduce our carbon footprint further.