Our path to sustainability

A message from our CEO

Our path to sustainability

A message from our CEO

None of us can afford to ignore the environmental changes we see happening around us. We have a collective responsibility to do what we can to safeguard the planet for future generations, and the Spandex Group is wholly committed to making our products and operations more sustainable.

As a manufacturer and distributor of materials for visual communications made in many cases from plastic, we can’t shy away from our environmental impact. We certainly have challenges to overcome on the path to sustainability, but we’re making positive strides, with a clear and ambitious strategy that covers many aspects of our business.

We’ve set ourselves bold targets for continuous improvement, and we’re empowering all Spandex employees to get involved – by looking at small everyday changes they can make as individuals in the workplace, as well as being proactive with suggestions on how we can all do better.

There is no ‘magic wand’, unfortunately, but our intentions are clear. Every step we at Spandex take towards a more sustainable future is a positive one, that also helps our customers and their customers to reduce their environmental impact.

Read on to find out more about our sustainability strategy, commitments and products, and keep coming back, because we’ll be adding more information to this site as we go.

And whether you’re a customer, supplier, partner or employee, please get in touch with me if you have any proactive suggestions for how we can do more and accelerate our progress.

This matters to all of us.

Andrew Coulsen
CEO. Spandex Group

Moving forward

Sustainability in action

Take a look at what we are doing now within the Spandex group of companies.

Our strategy

Spandex’s Sustainability Strategy is focused on five areas and underpinned by the high ethical standards we hold ourselves to.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions

Let’s talk about sustainability

What is sustainability?

The word sustainability comes from ‘to sustain’, which essentially means to provide support and prolong or preserve something.

Sustainability focuses on meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

The concept of sustainability is composed of three pillars: economic, environmental, and social – also known informally as profits, planet, and people.

All of them, directly and indirectly, impact each other – none of these pillars stand alone. This is why it’s important to consider everything when we’re talking about sustainability, from materials and wastage to human treatment and working conditions.

Sustainability is a business approach to creating long-term value by taking into consideration how a given organization operates in the ecological, social, and economic environments.

Sustainability is built on the assumption that developing such strategies fosters company longevity.

There are plenty of things that you can do to be more sustainable. What you’re able to do will depend on things like where you live and how much time you have, but there are still options for everyone.

In addition, you don’t have to be perfect in order to be sustainable. It’s better to make a few changes and stick to them rather than not try at all because you’re unable to do everything sustainably.

  • Sort waste and dispose of it correctly
  • Use reusable shopping bags
  • Donate things that you don’t use anymore (e.g. toys, clothes, sports equipment)
  • Buy locally sourced goods
  • Source energy from renewable providers
  • Avoid chemicals when gardening
  • Build an insect hotel in your garden
  • Walk instead of using a vehicle

The Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs) were created as an attempt to map out a series of goals that would tackle the world’s most important challenges, with a deadline set for 2030.

They include goals related to ending poverty, providing access to education, protecting and preserving life, fixing inequalities and tackling climate change.

 

The Sustainable Development Goals were created in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.

They served as a replacement for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were created in 2000 as part of a global effort to fight poverty and hunger.

ESG is an acronym for environment, social, and governance, so we can see that the concept will have some overlap with sustainability.

The main difference between the two is that ESG is specific and measurable, whereas sustainability is a broader and more vague term. This means that companies can use ESG criteria to make tangible decisions and steps in their company to become greener, more ethical, and better governed.

Put simply, climate change is the long-term shift in weather patterns and global temperatures, often seen on a large scale.

It’s a natural part of life, and existed for centuries before humanity was born, but when we talk about climate change today, we’re normally referring to the fast rise of temperatures that we’ve seen in the last 100 years as a result of human activity

In our current economy, we take materials from the Earth, make products from them, and eventually throw them away as waste – the process is linear.

In a circular economy, by contrast, we stop waste from being produced in the first place.  This is a challenge for the visual communications industry due to the composition of self-adhesive films, the packaging required and the large and dispersed nature of our consumer base, which makes collecting end-of-life products difficult.