Sustainability
“We are committed to working in a way that does the least damage to our world - with the ultimate goal of zero waste, carbon neutrality and increased local and circular manufacturing.
We always aim to deliver the best quality creations while reducing our footprint and enhancing the natural environment. Striving to be as environmentally conscious as we can throughout every facet of our business - sourcing, manufacturing, importing, handling, despatch and the running of our head office. As well as an issue that we feel deeply passionate about, ecological awareness is a crucial part of how we all shop now and we want to be ahead of this curve. We know we’re not perfect, but we are completely focused on our sustainable journey and making changes wherever we can, however big or small.
We pledge to make decisions that maximise sustainability from supply chain and product space to our warehouse and beyond. Helping to protect people and planet is always on our minds and as a work-in-progress, we want to ensure that we’re honest with you. We are always learning how to innovate and adapt our product and practices in line with our principles. Working in better ways and forming a shift in sustainable business.
Head Office
Change starts at home and over half our energy is produced from our own solar panels with the rest from a 100% green electricity provider. Last year, we removed our gas supply and finished installing LED bulbs across our building.
Sourcing
We offer many fully recyclable designs including our 100% recycled hair brushes and hair ties. Finding other ideal materials from suppliers in our market is a challenge but it is our mission to lead a positive movement that sees this change. We hope that by creating a demand for sustainable materials they will become more available for all to buy.
Importing
Bringing our products into the country by sea helps to alleviate excess carbon emissions. On a comparable basis, sea shipping is a less CO2-intensive mode of transport over road, rail or air freight. We currently offset all of our shipping emissions through the Ecologi initiative, which helps to support tree planting schemes. We also make the most out of every shipment, making sure our containers are not needlessly transporting wasted space. We are keenly following the exploration of cleaner fuels for ships and fully support it.
Packaging
We have significantly reduced the amount of plastic packaging used for our products and continue to work on this. Where items can be damaged during shipping to us, we use minimal polypropylene (PP) protection that is then utilised in-house and responsibly recycled once no longer viable.
Delivery
We send out our orders using 100% recycled, reused and recyclable delivery materials. All of our parcels are packaged in reused cardboard boxes so that no new cardboard is created. We also work with DPD, a carbon neutral courier service.
Our Projects
Our Local Community
INCA has been based in Shepshed since we began in 1976. This burgeoning town in north-west Leicestershire is our home and we work with local organisations that help the community flourish. We are official sponsors of Shepshed Litter Pickers who remove litter from communal spaces to protect local wildlife and people. We also regularly donate resources to local youth groups and work with a local sport teams who use land at our head office as one of their training grounds.
Planting & Wildlife
We passionately promote wildflowers to flourish in and around our head office and will be underplanting our sensitively-managed hedges with more plants for local pollinators. We already have a number of birds nesting around our building and cherish our solitary bees and insects.
Carbon Offsetting
We currently work with Ecologi to offset every part of our UK-based business and shipping. Every member of our UK team is carbon positive, with 15% more than each individual's daily footprint offset. A minimum of 12 trees per person is planted each month alongside a number of other Ecologi projects that meet the highest verification standards.
Charity Collections
We donate excess stock to local charities and arrange regular collections from Barnardos. This way, the team can easily donate any personal unwanted items to a good cause and reduce waste. Products that have minor defects are given to youth art groups to be used as crafting materials and we also work with fundraising campaigns to help with box donation schemes and other brilliant programmes.
