REDUCING OUR FOOTPRINT
Protecting Ancient & Endangered Forests
Boden is working with Canopy to ensure that the forest fibre in our viscose products and their packaging does not originate in ancient or endangered forests. Canopy is a not-for-profit organisation, dedicated to protecting the world's Ancient and Endangered forests, climate and species. It has partnered with over 950 brands, producers, and innovators to transform their viscose, paper and paper packaging supply chains, scale low-carbon and circular alternatives, and save climate- and biodiversity-critical forests.
Boden has committed to eliminate Ancient and Endangered forest fibre within its man-made cellulosic supply chain (viscose, rayon, lyocell, modal, acetate) through the CanopyStyle initiative and its paper packaging supply chain through the Pack4Good initiative.
PACKAGING
If you live in the UK or Europe 100% of the cardboard delivery boxes you receive will be made from 100% recycled material. They’re fully recyclable too, so please do. Any boxes that are returned to our UK warehouse in Leicester are recycled in a closed loop system. In the US our cardboard delivery boxes contain between 85% and 100% recycled material. To reduce our carbon footprint we source our boxes locally. You might also like to know that the packing tissue used inside our delivery boxes worldwide is made from 100% recycled paper.
We have reviewed all the options for our dispatch bags and found that the polythene option has the lowest impact on the planet. The polythene we use for our bags is 80% recycled material and is fully recyclable. Polythene bags have two key advantages over paper: they can be recycled many more times than paper and they take up much less space than paper. This results in a lower carbon footprint for transportation. Any polythene bags that are returned to our Leicester warehouse are recycled in a closed loop system.
Last but not least, the transparent polythene bags used to protect individual garments inside our parcels always contain at least 95% recycled content.
REDUCING LANDFILL
We never send unsold Boden products to landfill. In the UK we divert end of line stock to a number of charities that sell our clothes to raise funds for their work. In the US we’ve partnered with Planet Aid, who sell unsold Boden items in thrift stores as well as distributing clothing to areas of need. We also run the Pass It On programme which enables customers to send back Boden items they no longer want in exchange for account credit. Over 2,500 items were returned by customers during 2024 to be passed on to charity or recycled.
In the UK our partner Bright Secure Recycling repurposes any Boden stock that is not fit to be sent to charity. In 2024 they recycled 4.5 tonnes of odd shoes and rags by turning it onto dog bed or gym equipment filling. In 2024 the waste generated across our business sites was processed as follows: 92% was recycled; 2% used for power generation; and 6% went to landfill.
REDUCING CARBON
We’re continuing to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Our 2024 SECR (Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting) submission showed a further reduction in our carbon emissions to 486 tonnes across our four sites, down from 2,400 tonnes in 2019. As in previous years we off-set these emissions by investing in wind farm projects in India using gold accredited schemes, as some of our clothing is made there.
We know there’s a lot more to do. Most of the carbon emissions associated with our business occur in the manufacturing of our clothes by our suppliers (Scope 3). As well as choosing lower-impact fibres we’re developing tools to highlight hot spots of heavy carbon emissions in our supply chain. This is the first step in helping our partners remove carbon from the manufacturing process, to reduce our overall Scope 3 emissions.