Name of the Company: eco-craft
What they do:
eco-craft manufactures an impressive array of paper-based craft products with a strong sense of sustainability. With a firm environmental policy and numerous products made from recycled materials, they’ve managed to span the paper-based product market whilst minimising their carbon footprint.
What they do well:
- 100% powered by good energy renewable energy
- Customer’s orders are delivered plastic-free!
- Source materials from suppliers located no further away than the E.U to keep transport emissions low
- A product range filled with products made of biodegradable and often recycled materials
What does their environmental policy say?
A comprehensive environmental policy covering suppliers, self-reviews and waste management.
Suppliers: by only working with UK and E.U based suppliers, they’ve ensured collaboration with companies that are held to stricter environmental regulations. This helps to keep carbon emissions throughout the supply chain as low as possible.
Business-review: eco-craft carries out self-reviews as well as supplier reviews to ensure efficient use of resources as well as waste management. This way they hold themselves as well as suppliers accountable for their environmental impacts.
Waste management: material waste is either used to package customer orders or recycled. Recycling waste is collected by an environmental agency licensed commercial waste solutions company.
What they could improve:
eco-craft seems to do everything bar monitor their carbon emissions. Their thorough environmental policy would be complete with some kind of commitment to monitoring the operation’s carbon output.
This way, they’d see which of their policies is most effective, and which could be improved. However, this may be something they are working on internally as we’re aware of how complex carbon measurement is for companies at the moment. They’re still a good example of how far you can get without measurement.
What can you learn from them?
- A solid environmental policy: eco-craft is a leading example to SMEs that smaller, family-run firms can uphold a rigorous environmental policy that doesn’t impact profits
- A website loaded with recycling and sustainability-related information means that you can make every visit to your SME website at minimum, an informative one
What is the cost?
eco-craft isn’t as economically attractive as some of the other companies that we’ve reviewed, but the future impact of plastic packaging and carbon taxes will likely make them more price competitive.
Switching today, and purchasing your paper-based goods from a supplier like eco-craft may save you money in the long run as well as reduce your carbon emissions.
| eco-craft Price Comparison *Commonly used products. eco-craft offers an array of products |
| eco-craft | Less sustainable alternative | Price (pack) | Price (unit) |
|---|---|---|---|
| C5 Kraft envelope (100 per pack) | 5 Star C5 Envelope (500 per pack) | £7.96 | £14.40 | £0.079 | £0.028 |
| A5 recycled paper (100 sheets) | A5 smooth white paper (100 sheets) | £3.32 | £4.00 | £0.033 | £0.004 |
| A4 recycled natural card (100 sheets) | A4 card sheets (100 sheets) | £14.15 | £3.99 | £1.41 | £0.039 |
| SRA3 recycled card (100 sheets) | SRA3 standard white card (100 sheets) | £13.16 | £9.60 | £1.31 | £0.96 |
| Gift tags medium (30 tags) | Kraft and white tags (20 tags) | £1.04 | £1.75 | £0.034 | £0..87 |
| Self-adhesive parcel tape | Polypropylene packaging tape (pack of 6) | £2.70 | £4.51 | £2.70 | £0.75 |
