Enviromental Impact

Since long before we started our journey in to online retailing, we've taken our impact on the environment very seriously both in terms of the materials we use and the energy we consume.

Packaging Materials and Warehouse Waste

We collect waste cardboard and used boxes from a number of local businesses, saving them the trouble and cost of disposal and giving us most of the packaging we need.

The boxes that are good enough to be used again are used as outer cartons for our customer orders and those that are not, are shredded up and used as void fill within the cartons.

This is of little commercial benefit to us as it’s quite labour intensive and whilst the shredding machines don’t cost a lot to run in terms of the energy they consume, they are expensive to buy and time consuming to use. It’s most certainly not the ‘cost free’ packaging it may first appear to be.

Office and Warehouse Lighting

The lighting in our warehouse and offices has been selected specifically for it's energy efficiency and a lot of effort has been put in to ensure lights are positioned in a way to make the absolute best use of the light they produce, especially within our offices. The lighting in our stock rooms are controlled via occupancy sensors so are only used when the areas are occupied.

Showroom Lighting

Our showroom is divided up in to sections and each section is controlled by motion detecting sensors ensuring the sections are only lit when the are occupied. In addition to this our Crystal, Bathroom and Outdoor sections are divided up further in to subsections which are controlled by push button timer switches ensuring that customer can illuminate the lights they are interested in without powering up all of the surrounding lights. In addition to this most of the lights in our showroom are fitted with retrofit LED bulbs. This not only demonstrates that most of our lights be retrofitted with LEDs but that you can make big energy savings without having to compromise your style choice.

Computers and Electronic Equipment

We only ever replace equipment when it has either expired or is no longer able to keep up with the demands put upon it by our business systems. Recently a number of desktop computers have reached the end of their serviceable life and have been replaced by computers that are considerably more energy efficient. Most of the computers that are being replaced have power supplies capable of consuming up to 400w, whereas the replacement machines consume no more than 40w. Granted, the old machines wont consume 400w all of the time they're on but they will consume considerably more than their replacements so significant energy savings are expected.