Sustainable practices in the workplace:

Every business, however big or small, traditionally has a seemingly never-ending paper trail, with reams of paper being used for office bookkeeping, receipts for customers or order preparation. Years of hoarding paperwork for tax or auditing purposes has ingrained in many of us the need to have hard copies of document after document. At Michael Jones Jeweller, we have made a conscious effort to reduce printouts and photocopies where they are not needed and each of our showrooms has a well-used recycling system to dispose of excess paperwork both standard waste and confidential waste. We are happily also moving to a paperless system for much of our administration which will drastically reduce the amount of paper consumed in the business.

In other areas of our business, we have made small improvements including, installing automatic lights in common areas where possible to reduce energy consumption and reminders to turn off heating and lights around the building. We try to reuse packaging, boxes, and jiffy bags from incoming deliveries where possible to reduce the amount of recycling and have removed disposable cups in favour of reusable cups and water bottles.

Sustainable packaging:

We are very conscious of how much packaging is delivered to homes through online ordering and have spent time over the past few years researching and searching out the very best packaging for our online orders to reduce waste for our customers as well as ourselves. We have chosen to use unprinted unbranded cardboard boxes that are 100% recyclable and try to use paper tape rather than plastic tape to aid in the ease of recycling. We appreciate that sometimes we use large boxes for our precious deliveries and use void fill to protect the contents during transit. Don’t be alarmed, our packing filler is made of potato starch which can be composted or dissolved in water for a clean alternative to polystyrene or bubble wrap but protects your orders just as well.

Sustainable marketing:

The majority of the marketing for Michael Jones Jeweller is achieved via email and through our social channels. (Make sure you follow our Instagram, Facebook and/or TikTok!). Not only is this more sustainable for the environment, but it is also more instant and conversational allowing for a much more friendly approach. The exception to this is our annual mail-out which we produce in-house with a local printer and distribute to our customers by post. We have drastically reduced the size of this mailout from a large hard-backed book to a much smaller booklet which we are proud to say is fully recyclable (once you have devoured its contents!). The smaller size, aside from using much less paper and ink, is also letterbox size which means that we get fewer returns and a lower postage cost. The mail-out is also available to view online along with our mailouts from previous years which can be enjoyed with no consumables needed.

Sustainable transportation:

Thanks to some very keep cyclists within our company, we have implemented a cycle-to-work scheme to encourage our employees to travel to and from work on a bicycle or electric bike. This is a great scheme available to businesses to encourage their staff to improve their health and carbon footprint – more information can be found here: cyclescheme.co.uk.  We also offer lift shares for employees where possible, especially on the occasions when we have late meetings or events for the safety and ease of our employees.  

Shopping Online to Save the Planet

Through our website, we have teamed up with Shop Pay to support climate solutions. Simply look for the Shop Pay button when you shop online and every purchase removes carbon from the air - at no extra cost. The Shop Pay initiative funds building solutions to reverse climate change such as technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and oceans and planting trees to rejuvenate rainforests.