Entrading (operated by registered company Encorp Ltd) opened in central Glasgow in February 2007 as the UK’s first retail outlet dedicated to providing environmentally the best range of household goods. It incorporates a licensed café with only organic products. The principle was to mainstream sustainable consumption, to provide easy choice for consumers to reduce their environmental impact, and to act as a driver for sustainable production in the UK.
The premises comprise an abandoned corner location within 3 blocks of all public transport connections (railway stations, subway, bus routes) and 2 blocks of Glasgow’s prime shopping streets. Fitting-out involved a Glasgow-based eco-designer and incorporated:
Natural paint for decoration
Low-energy LED lighting
Natural rubber flooring
Recycled glass counter-tops
Glass and wire shelving – low in resource use and recyclable
Reused display shelves
Reused café furniture (from the National Gallery)
Sustainably-sourced wood where required
Natural coconut matting
Low-energy fridges/freezers
Low-water use toilets and spray taps; water metering of the premises
Renewable electricity contract
Heating with smokeless-zone compliant wood-burning stove using locally sourced sustainable logs
Disabled facilities and door-help phone.
Ethical and zero-carbon insurance cover
Our shop/café waste streams are segregated and we have private contracts in place to take recyclables.
We believe in being open about our third-party assessment reports (eg trading standards, food hygiene, environmental assessment) and summaries are available on our website (www.entrading.co.uk)
We have documented staff procedures (including equal opportunities, grievance, H&S). We seek staff locally, encourage them, as they all do, to travel to work either on foot or by public transport, and employ staff across all age/ethnicity ranges.
We seek continuous improvement and have recently found a reliable local provider of the organic vegetables we require throughout the year and, in addition, are doing everything we can to tailor our menu to fit with seasonality. We also sought a green freight company (although we initiate very little freighting) which provides the high standard of customer service/reliability of our current provider - however we have decided to offset our freighting using our own carbon vouchers . We are reviewing our banking and printing provision – even though we currently use an ISO14000 registered printer.
More important than premises and infrastructure is the nature of our trade. Our products are chosen to provide environmentally the best choices across the entire range of household goods from DIY to fashion, to detergents and cosmetics. Our website gives further details (www.entrading.co.uk). Examples include:
Low water/energy/noise dishwasher and washing machine, manufactured in Europe.
Natural paints, oils, varnishes, paint strippers.
Plaswood, a Scottish-made substitute for timber, from recycled agricultural plastic waste.
Composting/recycling bins, made in UK from recycled materials.
Clothing/shoes/bags from hemp grown, and manufactured, in Europe.
Jewellery from scrap glass and reused plastic.
Natural cosmetics.
Recycled glass tableware including, dishes, bowls, plates, candle-holders and lamps.
Sustainable carpeting and rugs.
Recycled stationery.
Organic cotton clothing/bedding, etc.
Brief explanatory information is provided on our shelving and we encourage questions and provide additional details of ingredients or, for example, COSHH assessments.
We select on the basis of environmental impact but moderated by manufacturing location (to reduce freight-miles), style, performance, and of course price. We source very predominantly from small UK-based suppliers. We innovate and, for example, are (we believe) the first to offer an across-the-counter facility to buy carbon-offsetting though a local, UN clean development mechanism trader. In the shop we are currently supporting a membership drive by the Soil Association.
Because we source as locally as possible then Fairtrade issues are not prominent but, for example, we ensure that our organic cotton is Fairtrade or sourced, for example, from Turkey. We do our best to check that material sourcing and manufacture is ethical and have turned down many products when there is no written testimony. We have only had to withdraw one product from our shelves because we were misinformed of its origins. We gave strong feedback to the supplier who promised to change his evidential material.
Our licensed café is entirely organic and vegetarian since it has been shown that an organic/vegetarian diet reduces environmental impact by 40% compared to the typical Scottish diet. One third of all UK food ends up as waste. We estimate waste in our café to be around 5% since everything is made to specific customer order. We offer vegan options which are rare in central Glasgow and our beers are local Scottish organic beers, while our wines come from no further than France. Our principal coffee is organic, fair-trade and rainforest alliance and is roasted 2 miles away. We provide catering services for business lunches – 100% organic and preferably vegetarian but, if requested, we will provide up to 40% non-vegetarian. Discrete signs explain our food sourcing and why organic/vegetarian diets are environmentally preferable. In the café we provide continuous images projected on the wall – highlighting the beauty of our natural environment but also occasional awareness-raising images of ecosystem damage caused by unsustainable living. Noticeboards direct people to other local, ethical, businesses,
We reach out to the community. On UN World Environment Day we held an event with drinks and snacks and a speaker on climate change from the Al Gore college. We sponsored a cycle trip along the Rockies in summer 2007 which aimed to highlight climate change, meet with local communities, and put Scottish schools in touch with Canadian/US schools to exchange views and ideas. We provided advice/support to the groundbreaking National Green Day in Glasgow. We have locally-manufactured supplies of recycled greetings cards; small items of furniture from recycled materials; handbags made by a Glasgow craftsman from scrap car seatbelts; and some clocks made by schoolchildren from scrap wood supplied by a local joiner/shop-fitter. Occasionally we mount exhibitions by local eco-designers/manufacturers (eg currently wasted:design (see our own website and also wasteddesign07@aol.com). We offer advice on sustainable/ethical purchasing online (through ask@entrading.co.uk) and also in person in the shop.
One of the owners gives numerous voluntary public talks on climate change, energy and sustainability to churches, NGO groups, as well as major conferences. He chairs the Scottish Sustainable Development Forum and the advisory committee to WWF Scotland, he is serving on the zero waste think tank for Scotland.