CSR at Firebrand
Thinking Globally, Acting Sustainably
The Firebrand Promise
At Firebrand, we know and understand that we are part of a bigger system of people, values, other organisations, and nature, it’s important that we play our part in helping the planet. We are making this set of commitments to our planet and our customers to fulfil our duty in helping our partners to make informed decisions when it comes to sustainable procurement.
What does The Firebrand Promise include?
- To educate and train our staff to continually improve their skills, awareness, and knowledge
- To maintain our trust with our customers and to be an educational guide in the areas of sustainability, materials, end-of-life credentials, water saved, CO2 calculations where possible
- That when we receive an enquiry for branded merchandise, our offer will always include products with sustainable attributes, to help the customer make an informed decision as to how they buy. Ultimately the decision rests with our client base but we promise that we will do our bit in providing choice
- To only promote merchandise on our website and social media if the product holds sustainable attributes
- To continue delivering an excellent customer experience, as reflected in our Feefo score and service reviews
- To get involved with more community initiatives, giving back to the planet and people
- To continue planting trees with every order which helps to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
- To follow the Ten Principles as a United Nations Global Compact participant along with our parent company, Geiger as well as meeting many of their Sustainable Development Goals in the work that we do and the projects we support
- To continue meeting EcoVadis’ standards and to continuously improve our efforts on sustainability to improve our score
Paris Agreement
At Firebrand, we are playing a part in doing our bit to contribute towards the goal set in the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a legally binding, international treaty on climate change. The aim of the Paris Agreement is to limit the global warming well below 2°C. Preferably to 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels.
Our partners, Climate Wise, mention on their website that “if the targets established at the Paris Agreement are not achieved, research displays that with our current emission trajectory, the global temperature will increase by 3-4°C in the following 80 years. Such warming will cause irreversible and catastrophic global environmental damage, including floods and famine for billions of people annually. Furthermore, this could cost the global economy over £480 trillion by the end of the century.”
OUR ROADMAP
What we’re doing to meet our reduction targets and support our customers in contributing to their targets
The Offset Collection
CO2 reduction is one of our main ambitions at Firebrand. As seen on our roadmap, we have been working with Climate Wise to offset our corporate and employees Carbon Footprint since 2021. The next step in this process is ring fencing a collection of products and offsetting them through Gold Standard projects to make them Carbon Neutral.
If you would like to understand more about Carbon Offsetting, please visit our education page.
For more information about the Gold Standard projects The Offset Collection supports, please click here.
Tree Planting
We will plant up to 200 trees on behalf of your brand when you order branded merchandise.
- In collaboration with Climate Wise, we will plant trees for every branded merchandise order. For orders exceeding £500, we’ll plant 10 trees; for those over £10,000, we’ll plant 100 trees; and for orders surpassing £20,000, we’ll plant 200 trees.
- The trees will be planted through veritree, and include Kelp, Mangroves and Fruit Trees.
- This gives your brand the chance to give something back to the planet when ordering your company’s swag.
Terms & Conditions apply. We will plant 10 trees for every order over £500 ex VAT, 100 trees for orders over £10,000 ex VAT, or 200 trees for orders over £20,000 ex VAT (excluding programme orders) each quarter, in line with our agreement with Climate Wise. A certificate detailing the number of trees planted relating to your orders will be available upon request. Please note that we are unable to plant any additional trees beyond these specified spend thresholds. Tree types will be randomly allocated, and there is no option to choose which trees are planted on behalf of your brand. There is no cash alternative for this initiative.
Take Back Scheme
At Firebrand, we’re working with our supply chains to source more products that are part of a circular economy rather than linear economy. If you’re going through a re-brand and have merchandise with your old branding on it, please don’t throw it if it’s on the list below or if you know that it has recyclable credentials. If you’re unsure, please contact us and we can look into the end-of-life credentials for you.
The Honest Bottle
The bottle and lid of the Honest Bottle can be recycled in household collections, whilst Honest take responsibility for the strap by paying to get it back, ensuring that it is then sent to an appropriate recycling facility or repurposed into future straps.
When you feel that your strap has reached the end of it’s life, please send it back to Honest so that they can ensure that it is responsibly recycled. Simply send your strap in an envelope to the following address: Freepost – Honest.
Americano Range
Our Americano Coffee Cups have been a best-seller of ours for as long as we can remember! The Americano range has grown overtime. It now includes both single and double wall options, antimicrobial choices, ones with a spill proof lids or with a handle, there is even the option of using recycled or natural materials. The purpose of an Americano cup is to reduce the use of single-use coffee cups, sending less single-use plastic to landfill by using a reusable cup.
However, if you go through a re-brand or no longer require the use of your branded Americano coffee cup, do you know how to dispose of it? You can return your Americano back to the following address: Americano Recycling, Neptune House, Sycamore Trading Estate, Blackpool, FY4 3RL. However, if you want to send back your Americanos in bulk, please contact us and we will work with the supplier to arrange this. Please don’t bin your Americanos and help us to contribute to a circular economy.
Kai Jacket
Working with our supply partners, together we take full responsibility for ensuring the Kai Jacket does not end up in landfill. You can return the Kai Jacket back to our supplier free of charge. After receiving the jacket back, it will be professionally cleaned, repaired if needed, and rebranded for reuse. You can’t change the past, but you can change the future. We want to thank you giving Kai a second chance and extending the useful life of the jacket.
Each Kai Jacket has a QR code printed on the inside of the jacket with free return instructions. This means whoever wears your branded Kai Jacket can return it for free. Please scan the QR code for more information on how to return the Kai Jacket.
Recycling Electrical Items
Please don’t bin your branded electricals! It’s time to stop electronics and their materials reaching landfill. At Firebrand, we’re actively looking at ways to improve the end of life of our products. We reached out to Recycle Your Electricals to find out if our branded electrical products can be recycled through their facilities. Good news, they can!
75% of all materials in electricals can be recycled and turned into anything from children’s playgrounds to lifesaving equipment. Through Recycle Your Electricals, you can find drop off locations to recycle your products or to repair, donate or sell them.
Did you know, if we recycled all our old electricals, it would cut as much CO2 as taking 1.3 million cars off the road?
Source: Recycle Your Electricals.
If you’re going through a re-brand or it’s time to upgrade your branded technology items, please make sure you recycle the old ones and refrain from putting them in the bin. Anything with a plug, battery or cable can be recycled! If you’re giving your branded gadgets away to your own stakeholders, please let them know that they can recycle their gift at the end of its life too.
Find your local recycling point: https://www.recycleyourelectricals.org.uk/electrical-recycling-near-me/
Greenwashing
Greenwashing shares a false impression or providing misleading information about how products have sustainable attributes when they potentially don’t. We understand that within the industry that we operate in, many of the products are still made from virgin materials with poor end of life credentials, and this is an area that we are working on and challenging our supply partners about. However, we will no longer actively promote on digital communications a product that we consider to be ‘non-sustainable’. Our website product feed will now only show products with sustainable attributes too and we aim to provide transparency on which attributes a product has. We also appreciate that due to the nature of our business, we must consider shipping and production may have a negative impact on the planet. That’s why we are making changes as stated in the roadmap above and offering our clients the option to choose a carbon neutral shipment.
We are not preaching to be perfect, but we are making positive changes to better ourselves. Our partnership with Climate Wise enables us to analyse the carbon footprint of our company and staff and then offset these onto Gold Standard projects. Climate Wise also facilitate the offsetting of The Offset Collection and our Tree Planting scheme through the Eden Reforestation Projects.
Ultimately buying branded merchandise with sustainable attributes is about informed choice, and we intend to provide this. If you want to discuss your brand’s merchandise options, please talk to our client team today.
