THE Gardens Group, which runs a garden centre in Yeovil, has announced significant carbon reductions, Tom Pickering writes.

Following an annual audit by the sustainability certification scheme, The Gardens Group has achieved a 29.3 per cent absolute carbon reduction in what is its third year as voluntary members of Plant Mark, which is backed by the Eden Project.

Their carbon reduction journey, which involved their 160 staff at all stages, began by establishing key areas for improvement that would need to be measured, including buildings, travel, waste, water, procurement, and homeworking.

By assigning smaller groups of staff to new initiatives, The Gardens Group has successfully reduced carbon emissions in nearly every area over the last year.

Carbon emissions relating to waste, business travel and buildings have seen some of the most substantial reductions.

After having already introduced several eco-friendly initiatives across their three centres, The Gardens Group decided to join the Planet Mark community with the hope of significantly reducing their impact on the environment.

With this having been achieved, The Gardens Group is now working towards becoming a net zero business.

Commenting on this news, Mike Burks, managing director of The Gardens Group, said: “Looking after the environment has always been central to our ethos, but our work with Planet Mark has allowed us to put structured plans and communications in place to ensure that everyone can play their part.

“As a result, environmental impact is now at the forefront of our minds in everything we do. On setting out, we were hoping to see steady success across all areas of carbon reduction, but I’m delighted to say that we have surpassed these expectations and are now reducing carbon emissions by big percentages each year.

“Through our links with the Garden Centre Association, we’re feeding these ideas back into the garden centre industry as a whole and we also encourage the team to help apply these sustainable principles to community projects.

“By engaging with our customers and supporting their own sustainable initiatives, including at schools, garden clubs and community groups, the benefits of our efforts are felt far beyond the confines of the garden centres.”