Sustainability
Our commitment
We are committed to sustainability in what we do and in where and how we work. We aim to run low carbon environments, use green energy, produce less waste and reuse and recycle more.
Each of us can see how essential it is to make more sustainable choices in our everyday lives – in the office, at home, everywhere. It’s time for Which? to bring sustainability home to consumers, businesses, policymakers – and to ourselves.
Focus areas
To ensure we have put sustainability at the heart of our values, we are focusing on focus on four key areas:
Enabling consumers to make more environmentally sustainable decisions
We launched our sustainability hub on the Which? website which gives advice on how to buy better and live better, and the current focus is on our winter activity. We are also featuring more sustainability content online and in our magazines - highlights include a regular green column in Which? magazine, a monthly sustainability newsletter, a supplement, the first season of the Which? Investigates podcast, and a host of research resulting in brilliant advice on a range of topics from diet to energy efficiency, travel and more.
Influencing businesses and policymakers to enable sustainable consumerism and reduce environmental harm
We have published research and analysis setting out consumer priorities for COP26 and we continue to feed our evidence into key consultations, such as the DfT’s consultation on a new road vehicle CO2 emissions regulatory framework, expressing concerns over the methodology.
We also published a press release and a joint letter calling on the Prime Minister to support consumers in the transition to low carbon heat with Citizens Advice, the Association of Master Builders and the Aldersgate Group.
We're committed to becoming a net zero organisation
Energy provider: we have switched to Ecotricity, one of the first energy companies to be awarded a Which? Eco Provider for energy, for our electricity and gas in the London office.
Green bank account: we have moved cash within the organisation, that is not required for immediate needs, to a bank account with green credentials.
Office Plants: we sourced new office plants from a charity-run garden centre based in Camden and closer to our office. This meets our social purpose goals by using a charity and a local supplier, hence a shorter journey and fewer emissions. We are looking to source the London office Christmas tree from the same local charity-run garden centre.
Further offsetting: we offset the carbon footprint of getting our samples to the various test labs we use, both in the UK & overseas. Also the cost of getting them back to the UK (for sale) where it's cost efficient to do that. This is based on the mileage by transport type (road, sea, air) and then the amount in kgco2 is offset by a company called atmosfair
Bio wrap for magazine: we have switched from standard polywrap to compostable biowrap (made from potato/corn starch) for the majority of magazines in 2019 as we are now investigating paper wrap as an alternative to bio-wrap.
Recycle logo: we have updated all of our stationery to include a recycling logo which encourages members to recycle the paper when they're finished with it.
Enabling our colleagues to live more sustainably
We have introduced sustainable living and handy Q&A guides, we have an active #sustainability slack (our internal communication) channel and in the longer term we are investigating greener benefits for colleagues... more info coming soon!
