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What we mean by sustainability

Sustainability is at the core of everything we provide. Our understanding of our environmental responsibilities informs all we do, every step of the way.

Whether it’s design, development, manufacture, or delivery, we strive to meet your needs without compromising our planet for future generations. For the sake of our planet we focus our sustainability initiatives on:

  • Our business
  • Our products
  • Our customers, our suppliers and in the communities where we do business
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Our sustainability mission

We are committed to ensuring sustainability is always at the heart of our business.

As packaging specialists, we are deeply conscious of our responsibilities to the wellbeing of the planet—and we’re constantly striving to make our commitment a reality in all we do.

Our commitments include:

  • Being net zero for carbon emissions by 2040 for our own emissions and 2050 for our suppliers
  • Setting targets using the Science Based Targets (SBT) initiative
  • Working with One Carbon World as our independent facilitator
  • Regular 3rd party audits against the ISO 14001 standard

But, as well as these big targets, we also fundamentally believe that sustainability is as much about ‘sweating the small stuff’ – the things we and our suppliers and customers can do everyday to reduce the negative environmental impact we all can have on our world.

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How we achieve sustainability for our business

We are proud to be an Ecovadis silver-rated business, and to be moving towards gold.

But we know there’s much more to do. That’s why we continue to focus on:

  • Preventing pollution
  • Reducing our transport miles
  • Using sustainable and recycled materials and energy-saving processes
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Ethical trade and human rights in our business

Southgate is about people. The products and solutions we supply are a result of the dedication of our experts and suppliers, working hand-in-hand with our customers.

We believe that the quality of the work we produce is down to an ethical business culture that puts our people at the centre.

Throughout our supply chains, we are committed to key corporate responsibility initiatives, including:

  • Upholding the principles detailed in the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI) Base Code
  • Ensuring that we are adhering to our obligations under the Modern Slavery Act 2015
  • And empowering all our people to recognise and call out bribery, corruption and unethical behaviour
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How we achieve sustainability for our products

With Southgate, being sustainable doesn’t mean sacrificing performance and cost-efficiency.

While meeting all of the high standards for quality you expect and we demand, we aim for each of our products to meet one or more of the five criteria below;

  • Sustainable
  • Recyclable
  • Reusable
  • Biodegradable
  • Waste-minimal

Our recent sustainable product innovations include:

  • Ensuring our plastic strapping is made of a minimum of 30% recycled material
  • 100% biodegradable WAT & lower energy WAT tape dispensers
  • Recycled plastic and paper void fill pillow packs
  • Paper, sealable mail bags
  • Pacplus self-adhesive kraft paper tapes and masking tapes – made from natural wood pulp and environmentally-friendly hot melt adhesive
  • Power pre-stretch pallet wrappers such as the Optimax PSW002 turntable and RSW6 robot can slash film usage by up to 75%
  • A fully recyclable cardboard strap
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How we achieve sustainability for our customers and suppliers

We know sustainability is everyone’s responsibility. That’s why, wherever possible, we work with both suppliers and customers to address any specific ESG concerns or initiatives that they are undertaking.

We are currently working with a number of our supply chain partners on projects including:

  • Carbon emission calculations
  • Ethical concerns in specific supply chains
  • Supply chain mapping
  • Carbon reduction projects
  • Extended Producer Responsibilities (EPR)

And, because we know the legislation, we help our customers understand and fulfil their obligations under UK and EU green packaging laws.

Sustainability Awards

Ecovadis one carbon
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