What’s a bottle of milk got to do with World Earth Day?

Well, quite a lot actually!  It was one of those paradigm shifting moments, when you say ‘Enough’! … We’ve all been there, haven’t we?!

For us, here we are in the middle of an existential climate emergency and we were still buying ‘fossil fuel’ plastic milk bottles, used for just two days, and taking up to 500 years to biodegrade. Utter madness.  Add to that the massive carbon footprint to produce the single use plastic in the first place, plus the microplastics seeping in the oceans and our food chain.

This was the real catalyst to get us to look at all our processes and buying habits in relation to sustainability.

So, now we buy our milk from local family business GP Broadsmith & Son, located at Pool Farm 1.3 miles away from our Lymm office.  Milk from their free-range cows is bottled at source at the farm’s dairy.  It’s then delivered to our doorstep by an electric vehicle.  Once the milk bottles are empty, they are collected to be reused.   Good for the community, good for the planet & good for Apex!

Debbie Snelson, Apex’s Commercial Manager commented;

So, 2021 is the year we are getting really serious about our impact on the planet.

We believe in saving the planet & supporting local businesses.  That’s why we are doing this.  We know it’s only a small thing, but it all adds up.  We received our wake-up call listening to Mary Portas’ podcast series, “The Kindness Economy”, especially her chat with BrewDog co-founder James Watt.

The BrewDog interview discusses what they are doing to reduce their carbon footprint.  It hit us like a ton of bricks.  There is so much more that we must do to save our planet.  And the time to act is now.  Not next year, not 3 years – now!  So, we have started to challenge ourselves.  Are our marketing materials produced from sustainable sources, can they be recycled, how do we reduce our general waste, can we reduce our car mileage, the list goes on.

Apex has always supported environmental & community initiatives through “Apex Action” and our tree planting scheme where for every copier we sell, we plant a tree.  But it’s time to up our game.  It’s not just one straw…it’s not just one plastic bottle.

The Kindness Economy is about making business better and making people and planet as important as profit.  In the words of Mary Portas, it’s about “people, planet, profit in that order”. Every pound we spend is a vote for how we want to live.  Apex are taking it on board!

Other interviews in The Kindness Economy podcast series include Amanda Levate talking about how we live and what futures shops, offices and public spaces could look like, Pukka co-founder Sebastian Pole discussing how respecting people and protecting the planet are at the heart of his business and Triodos UK CEO Bevis Watts on sustainable banking.

If you’d like to listen to The Kindness Economy podcasts via Apple podcasts here’s the link – http://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-kindness-economy/id1463034553