From plastic-free products to refillables and responsibly-sourced wood, here’s what your local hardware shop is doing to be more sustainable…
‘It’s key going forward, for the younger generation.’ That’s Danusia McDonald, owner of Goring Hardware, speaking about why she pursues sustainability as a business goal. She
showed me around her shop, eager to give GGN readers an insight into what she’s doing to reduce the environmental impact of her business.
‘We’ve recently introduced Faith in Nature and Ecover. Faith in Nature is UK-based and offers plastic-free body care products. We’ve also introduced a whole eco range with cleaning brushes. With compost bins, you’ve got your plastic ones, but now I’ve moved away from that and they’re recyclable or made of bamboo. Another example: our shopping bags, lunch boxes and cups come from Eco Chic, a UK company. Their products contain recycled materials and they try to be more sustainable. We also sell bamboo socks, which have a lower synthetic content.
‘It’s very much in the forefront of my mind,’ she says, ‘and also trying to support UK-based companies.’ Danusia tells me there’s a clear reason why she’s so keen to do things differently: ‘At the end of the day we’ve got to support each other.’
However, she’s honest with me about the challenges they face in the sector: ‘We stock over 10,000 items, so sustainability is difficult. A lot of manufacturers use plastics, supplies often come in plastic and tin; if they are chemicals, they have to be stored carefully to be chemically stable. We are limited. As and where we can, we introduce and change. However, an aspect of that is that it’s probably more expensive because of the economics of recycling.’
When it comes to customer service, Danusia says they try to reduce their environmental impact by using biodegradable bags at checkout, or by wrapping items like bird seed, nuts and fat balls in paper bags. She tries to nudge customers in the right direction by selling products like glass jars and bottles instead of plastic ones, and by making sure Goring Hardware supplies items like firewood from responsible sources only. But, she says, sometimes there just aren’t any sustainable alternatives available on the market.
She’d love to sell some products, but sometimes suppliers have minimum orders that exceed the shop’s capacity: sometimes sellers want me to stock thousands of units and I just can’t do that, so it’s economics of scale at the end of the day.’ She also notes that matching online competition is also a factor she has to consider. ‘I’m very open to customers making suggestions,’ she says, adding that she particularly values what younger people think: ‘I’ve got two boys and they are informing me all the time, saying ‘have you looked at different ways of doing things?’’
Author: Dan Gordon-Potts (Goring Gap News)
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