Our sustainability story

Waste reduction

Waste reduction across all Leekes stores and offices is of huge importance to us as well as us thinking about the impact our waste has on a wider scale. To help with this we have introduced a number of schemes to support this initiative and are consistently looking at more ways we can reduce the environmental impact we are having as a business. Some of these are included below.

• Certified zero to landfill waste provider.
• Recycling schemes and waste segregation across all Leekes locations.
• A partnership with the British Heart Foundation, offering free furniture disposal as well as a charitable donation.
• A conscious effort to reduce the amount of print advertising we run in our marketing campaigns which helps to reduce paper waste and delivery vehicle emissions.
• Improving our product packaging to remove the use of bubble wrap and plastic sub straights from online deliveries and click & collect packaging, replacing plastics with eco-wrap and mono-material packaging options meaning that all waste can be recycled in the same channel.
• Removal of plastic carrier bags from all stores, including "bags for life" - hessian bags can be purchased in our stores as an alternative.

Energy efficiency

A hot topic for all of us is improving the energy efficiencies of our homes, and our Leekes homes (our stores and other locations) are no different. We are always looking for new ways to improve efficiencies at our sites as well as trying to become self-sufficient with our energy supplies to the majority of our stores. Here are a few of the things happening at Leekes.

• We have introduced solar panels to our Melksham store and our Head Office with an aim of making these locations use fully green energy in the very near future. We will continue this on any other possible locations within the group.
• Replacing halogen lightbulbs and lights throughout all locations with LED alternatives.

Carbon footprint

We want to strive to ensure that all Leekes deliveries are as eco-friendly as possible. This includes consideration of how we plan our delivery routes, ensuring that they are as efficient as possible as well as the introduction of new HGV vehicles to help meet emissions standards throughout the country. Below are just some of the ways we are working to reduce our carbon footprint.

• Our company car fleet is going electric! So far we have reduced our footprint and co2 emissions by converting 25% of our car fleet to electric vehicles. This initiative is part of an ongoing strategy to convert all company cars to electric as well as updating other fleet vehicles and opting for greener, more efficient models.
• With our marketing changing to more digital forms, it means we can reduce our carbon footprint. On average, we would produce and distribute over 500,000 leaflets and brochures, all of which would be delivered to various distribution centres before being delivered out to customers. Our new digital strategy means this is vastly reduced to less than 5% of the previous distribution and we can still keep our customers informed about our great offers and events in store without impacting on the environment.

Carbon footprint

As we continue on our path to encourage a greener future, you will see a number of new product lines within our stores using more economical and sustainably sourced products. Our buyers are working with our suppliers to reduce plastic packaging and it's important to note that we only work with suppliers that offer FSC wood ensuring that all wood used within the manufacture of our sofas and other furniture products is FSC certified as well as the timber we sell in our builders' merchants locations.

Other changes will include dedicated areas in store at various periods promoting eco-friendly products to encourage our customers to make a switch.

You can always keep up to date with our changes and new environmental initiatives by reading updates on our blog and following us on social media.