Are you ready to take on the plastic-free July challenge but worried about maintaining a clean home without plastic-based cleaning products? We've got you covered! In this guide, we'll share the essential tips and habits to keep your home sparkling clean while making a positive impact on the planet throughout this important month.

1. Opt for Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products: Switching to eco-friendly cleaning products is the easiest and quickest change you can make. At Delphis Eco, our sustainably sourced and less harmful cleaning solutions are as effective as conventional products, ensuring a clean home without compromising the environment.

2. Embrace Compostable Bin Bags: Ditch plastic bin bags and opt for compostable alternatives made from plant-based materials. By doing so, you'll prevent harmful chemicals from seeping into landfills, as these bags decompose naturally within six months.

3. Reuse and Refill Spray Bottles: Be environmentally conscious by reusing old cleaning spray bottles. At Delphis Eco we offer a range of refill options made from recycled plastic, reducing carbon emissions by an impressive 70%. Simply refill your spray bottles with our eco-friendly cleaning solutions and minimise plastic waste.

4. Plastic-Free Scrubbers: Explore plastic-free scrubbers that offer antimicrobial properties without the environmental impact. Bamboo, coconut coir, and plant fiber scrubbers are excellent alternatives, providing durability and effective cleaning power.

5. Try Laundry Detergent Strips: Opt for innovative laundry detergent strips packaged in minimal, compostable materials. Look for brands that use biodegradable ingredients, ensuring a clean laundry without harmful chemicals. Always check the labels for eco-friendly certifications.

6. Swap Disposable Wipes for Hemp Cleaning Cloths: Say goodbye to disposable cleaning cloths and microfibre alternatives. Reusable hemp cleaning cloths are washable and biodegradable, providing a sustainable option without compromising cleanliness.

7. Consider Eco-Friendly Cleaning Services like Cleaning Express: If time constraints make professional cleaning services a necessity, opt for local cleaners who can commute by walking or cycling. Request that they use your eco-friendly cleaning solutions and equipment to maintain your sustainable lifestyle.

Achieving an eco-friendly cleaning routine is easier than you think. With the right cleaning solutions and sustainable equipment, you can maintain a clean home without harsh chemicals while contributing to a healthier planet. Make a positive impact this Plastic-Free July and discover that sustainable cleaning is both effective and rewarding.

This January, we have listed our top tips to make your new year more eco-friendly. By simply swapping some of your day-to-day habits and purchases, you will be well on your way to a planet conscious 2023.

It all starts at home.

When cleaning after the holidays, our products are the ones to choose to stop the nasty chemicals from getting into the environment, impacting your health and the health of aquatic life. But what a great way to go that one step further and switch your cleaning equipment to compostable alternatives, like Seep's ones. Seep offer a range of compostable gloves, sponges and even bine liners to help you keep on top of your eco-cleaning and ensure that no micro-plastics go out into the environment.

Planning a holiday?

This year choose a conscious stay away with the planet in mind. Room2 by The Lamington group is the world's first hometel brand moving to fully net zero. We are delighted to support their business in becoming more sustainable by providing them with our planet-friendly range of cleaning products!

Skin and Beauty

Switch your skin and beauty products to products with natural ingredients and recycled packaging like the ones offered by Grumm! They even provide a razor cartridge recycling scheme, taking care of the recycling for you. From purifying Facial cleansing bars to Beard Wash bars, they have all your necessities to leave you fresh this January without compromising. 

Dining out!

We know this month's focus is mainly on your health, so why not treat yourself to delicious and healthy food at the Apricity restaurant in London? Apricity is a sustainable restaurant offering a conscious dining experience from its menu to its dishes; they have the environment in mind. 

Giving back

With the cost of living at an all-time low this January, families around the country are struggling to eat. So this January, why not give back to charities like The Felix Project? The Felix Project is a charity that distributes surplus food to vulnerable people in the UK and is a great way to give back this January.

Need more inspiration for an eco-friendly 2023? Why not try the 'In Good Company' app? Wherever you are in the UK, this app finds you trusted and reviewed shops- from social enterprise coffee shops and sustainable restaurants to zero-waste shops and even eco hair salons. All your options at the click of a button! To download, please click here.

 Christmas… A time for families to come together, exchange gifts and eat to their heart's content. But what impact does our overindulgence and shopping habits have on the environment? During the holiday season our carbon footprint is 6% more than the rest of the year, so how can we make our Christmas a little bit greener? Every pound you spend this Christmas is a vote for the world you want to create, so here are Delphis Eco's top tips for a Christmas that doesn't cost the Earth.  

Should you go for the real tree or get the plastic one out of the loft? 

Every year there is a debate about whether people should ditch their real tree and go for a fake one. Or ditch the Christmas tree altogether. Research has found seven million trees are thrown out every year in the UK, releasing copious amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Artificial trees can be reused on average 7-20 times, which is better for the environment as it saves fresh trees from being chopped down and can save you money! 

But if you want to buy a real tree, know that the carbon footprint is lower than that of an artificial one. A popular alternative is opting for potted trees, which can be reused and replanted. Another option is replanting your Christmas tree in your garden or converting your old tree into beneficial woodchip mulch by putting it through a shredder which can reduce its carbon footprint by up to 80%. It's a win-win! 

Spread the Christmas magic 

At Christmas, we know the pressure is on to buy the perfect present for your nearest and dearest, but just under a half of us Brits admit that we have received gifts we don't or will never use. But the only good can come from buying gifts from small businesses, being mindful of sustainability and going for gifts with less packaging. 

According to Gov.uk we use enough card packaging (and material) at Christmas to cover Big Ben nearly 260,000 times. That is mind-boggling! Were you aware that to make 1 tonne of paper, around 24 trees must be cut down? So why not get creative by making e-cards to send your Christmas wishes by text if you want to give a great gift to the planet? 

The main event 

Christmas is the ultimate time to overindulge by eating our body weight in pigs in blankets or stuffing. But all that overindulgence means that around 270,000 tonnes of food are thrown away at Christmas every year. That's five million Christmas puddings, seventy-four million mince pies and two million turkeys, according to the Big Issue. And if that statistic doesn't make you want to spit out your eggnog, the government reckons that the number of poultry we throw away yearly is enough to make eight hundred million Boxing Day curries. Unbelievably, a herd of 636,000 reindeer weighs the same carrots thrown away by UK households annually.  

Fareshare is a charity network focused on reliving food poverty and food waste in the UK, was awarded 1.9 million pounds in 2019 from Defra. With the funding, Fareshare could redistribute even more food to those who need it. Their work also prevented 2,000 frozen turkeys from Gressingham Foods from going to waste in 2019, almost double the number redistributed the year before. So why not donate some of your leftovers to them? 

What actions are we taking to do our bit? 

Around 114,000 tonnes of plastic packaging will be thrown away and not recycled in the UK this Christmas – which is more than the weight of 3.3 million Emperor penguins. One way to lower your contribution to the plastic plight is to buy products made of post-consumer recycled content. Ultimately you can only purchase the products available to you, and here at Delphis Eco, we offer refills on a range of our products so that you will be all kitted out for the festive season. 

 Here are our top ten Green Christmas tips: 

1. Use eco-friendly cleaning products that don't harm the planet but get the job done!
2. Donate your untouched food item to your local food bank  
3. Eat less meat - Christmas is the perfect opportunity to try something new 
4. Try out your local refill shop to dodge the unnecessary packaging at your supermarket 
5. Buy your food from suppliers that use minimal packaging 
6. Get all your food in one trip or order online if it's more convenient  
7. Buy loose fruit and veg to avoid unnecessary single-use plastic
8. Try and reduce your food waste by buying only what you need 
9. Invest in some reusable wax wraps and foil liners (foil is recyclable in most cases but check with your local authority)
10. Store your leftovers in the freezer

Written by Ellie Meredith

As COP27 ends, we reflect on the discussions surrounding the global climate change conference and what we can take away to tackle this global fight. The annual conference presents opportunities for all stakeholders, government leaders and activists to discuss strategies to reduce climate change. The international conference gives global leaders and shareholders the platform to discuss ways to minimise the effects of climate change and the potential impact it could have on the planet. 

COP27 highlighted a solution-focused approach to minimise global surface temperature. Unlike the most recent Climate Week held in New York, which emphasised the ongoing global climate issues.

Now climate change specialists are urging global leaders to develop strategies to mitigate the global warming effects on the planet. There is an emphasis on governments working with businesses to accomplish this. Connecting with countries globally to work together is paramount, and this needs to happen with everyone in the same room. 

Previous COPs emphasised businesses were moving together at the same pace, working together to deliver environmental change. However, with global temperatures reaching record-breaking highs, the race is on, and there has been a shift to urge companies and countries to act as fast as they can.

COP27 bought speculation concerning whether the COPs are the best way to direct positive action against climate change. One word that circled COP27 was ‘greenwashing’ (deceiving customers by falsely advertising natural, green and eco-friendly products). The growing demand for sustainable products in the market means that everyday brands are renaming, rebranding and repackaging products to keep up to date with customers’ needs, but without holding sustainable values at the core of the business. COP27 presented the opportunity to mitigate greenwashing and bring awareness to the issues at stake when deceiving consumers. The conference reminded us that we each have the responsibility to make conscious decisions, an integral part of our lives to make a significant change.

We at Delphis Eco are proud to have sustainability at the forefront of our business values, and as a certified B-corp, we make all business decisions with the planet in mind. 

How can we achieve net-zero carbon and halt the climate crisis? By working together to drive widescale, meaningful change.

To this end, Delphis CEO Mark Jankovich meets fellow eco-entrepreneurs to swap insights and inspiration. This week, we’re honoured to welcome Laura Harnett, founder of sustainable cleaning retailer, Seep.

Mark Jankovich: A big welcome, and thank you for being our second in the series after Toast Ale!

Laura Harnett: Toast was actually one of my inspirations, so this was clearly meant to be.

MJ: Excellent. Please start by telling us about your background and the story of Seep.

LH: I was a buyer, a consultant, and then I went into Selfridges as the chief of staff, but my corporate life was at odds with how I was living, the products I was using, alongside being very aware of things going on in the world, and at some point you can't live this kind of separate life. Then I was diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer, and that puts a fire in your belly. I’d had the idea for Seep for quite some time and at the beginning of lockdown I decided to finally go for it.

MJ: What is the idea, in a nutshell?

LH: I believe it should be easier for people to make sustainable choices. I was in my local Waitrose and I had my recycled toilet paper and my organic food in the trolley, but then I went down the cleaning aisle – bin liners, sponges, cloths, washing-up brushes, mops, all of that bumpf – and it looked like the 1950s. There wasn't a sustainable product anywhere to be seen. I wanted to put in some innovation, to give people an alternative.

MJ: I think you've succeeded in that for sure, Laura. And as you say it should be easier to make better choices. What do you think businesses should be doing to drive this impact at scale?

LH: You have to keep peeling back the layers of what you've got in your supply chain, because it’s not ingrained. The guys doing our packaging and our printing, they don’t automatically think of sustainability unless you ask questions. And if they come back with a crappy answer or say, "oh, it’s biodegradable", that’s not good enough.

MJ: I hear you work with On A Mission. How are they different from the 55 million others doing carbon offsetting?

LH: They are scientists and engineers who work in reforestation. They’re very data-driven, there’s no ego, no flashy branding, just great decision-making and backup for how they choose their projects. If I feel that somebody has the same sort of ethics as me, that goes a long way.

MJ: Did they help you with your LCA, the Life-Cycle Assessment?

LH: Yeah, we’re at the early stages of doing that as part of our B Corp certification. They look at what your products are made of, how they’re made, how you're shipping them, the mileage, and then they give you a carbon footprint based on the way that you're currently sourcing. We offset three times our footprint, but the idea is that you keep the money the same, even though your footprint – hopefully – comes down, so you’re offsetting more and more over time. How have you done it? Any tips?

MJ: For us, scope one and two was easy, the hard piece is scope three. It's auditing our factories at a real deep detail. They are moving in the right direction, but I'm almost at the point of panicking about scope three and how we can draw that baseline. Because you can't say you’re going to race to zero and not know where you started.

LH: Exactly. I mean, it's really great to hear, because that's the stuff I endlessly beat myself up about, you know? How far back can we go? But knowing that even someone like you, Mark, is still worrying about that sort of thing, actually makes me feel better. If I can just chip away at it and understand where I'm at, anything that I can move forwards is a little victory.

MJ: And the whole point of this session is that it’s 100% our responsibility – 100% our responsibility! – and it winds me up that you have massive corporates that are putting their heads in the sand and saying, it’s not me! We are talking about such systemic change and you're not seeing it on a massive scale. The only one is Tesla where, at a binary level, they’ve redesigned the entire infrastructure and that's what we need. We need somebody to blow a billion dollars and be broke and be crying on the floor because he's got cars that nobody wants to buy and be within seconds of shutting down and then… make it! Everybody's now copying him, and governments are going we need to stop combustion engines!

LH: I couldn't agree more, it's the big disruptors that are prepared to challenge their industry. I'm biased, but I think Selfridges has done some really good stuff in that space. They did the ‘No More Fish in The Sea’ campaign years before it was the thing that caught on. It really comes from the top, so Alannah Western, the chairman, and the MD Anne Pitcher, they baked it into the strategy.

MJ: Alannah is a real stand-up leader.

LH: And brave. Because she said, "Look, it's going to impact our bottom line, but I believe so much in this".

MJ: What's so important about case studies and telling stories is we need to tell people that stuff is happening, things are changing, and this is the way you can behave, and they'll follow. If we can keep telling great stories and can collaborate on how we can work together, we will move the needle.

LH: If you can get people to love a brand, and an ethos, and a great looking product, and it also just happens to be sustainable, I'm good with that. A great example is Stella McCartney who, when she became a designer, said, I'm not using any animal products. Another example is Good Club. Are you listed with them?

MJ: Yes.

LH: Okay, so they’ve really thought it through from beginning to end. You get the crate that you can decant when you’re buying it loose, and they’ve made it super easy for the customer. The ethos they have on the buying side, being really clear about what they think is okay and what is not, I think that’s a real challenge to other grocery retailers.

MJ: The more I learn about them, the more I like their passion. What about your journey to getting B Corp certified? How’s that going?

LH: We are very early days, but I wanted to build Seep from the ground up in a way that was right, and I knew that B Corp was kind of a North Star that would guide me in the decision making. What works really well with me is, if I make a public statement about something, by God am I going to make sure that it happens!

MJ: I remember doing my B Corp submission. Oh, my God, that was hard yards! You know, Laura, it's amazing the overlap, because my ethos has also been, we’ve just got to do it, we've got to keep going and we've got to be true to ourselves. We have to think through all of our procurement, we have to make those better choices.

LH: Yeah, and it's tough when you're a new business, because those choices add cost. And you don't have the budget sometimes, so they're not choices that you make lightly. I think that's the hardest thing actually, how do you tread the balance of being as sustainable as you can be without killing your margin along the way?

MJ: I mean, that’s the reality of being an entrepreneur and a disrupter and delivering something completely new. I've got long-suffering shareholders who have been around for three times longer than they'd hoped, but you've just got to keep going and hope that it will come right. Last question. Where did the name come from?

LH: My husband's an orthopaedic surgeon and he loves an acronym. He came up with Sustainable Eco Everyday Products or something, and I thought, God, that’s naff! But then I thought, hang on a minute, it spells Seep, it’s got a lovely sound and a graphic designer would get quite excited about it. And it stuck.

MJ: That’s pretty cool. Well, thank you for taking time to talk.

LH: I mean, I have a ton more questions but they're all really practical, like plastic bottles and inks and, you know, no end of it. I’ll have to set up another time to pick your brains!

MJ: That is the point of Collaborate to Zero. I want to share what I know, my suppliers and so on, and get tips from others and kind of help push the whole thing. So, watch this space…

How can we achieve net-zero carbon and halt the climate crisis? By working together to drive wide-scale, meaningful change.

To this end, Delphis CEO Mark Jankovich meets fellow eco-entrepreneurs to swap insights and inspiration. First up is Louisa Ziane, co-founder and COO of Toast Ale.

Mark Jankovich: Welcome Louisa, thanks for finding time to talk. I’d love to start by understanding the story of Toast, where you guys came from and how you developed this amazing, sustainable approach to craft beer.

Louisa Ziane: My pleasure, Mark. We started Toast over five years ago when we saw that there was a huge problem with food waste. Did you know that in the UK, 44% of commercially made bread is discarded?

MJ: That’s appalling.

LZ: But thanks to a visit to a brewery in Belgium we learnt that the origins of brewing and baking are intertwined, because the original recipes for beer actually used a fermented grain like bread. This brewery created a delicious beer using surplus bread, creating a circular product. And we saw that we could marry the huge problem of food waste with the growing market opportunity of craft beer and create a really tasty solution. Now we dedicate our profits to a charity called Feedback, which was started by my Toast co-founder Tristram Stuart, to campaign for systemic change in the food industry. And of course, it’s also a communication tool, beer being the perfect way of starting a conversation. We know that the industrial production of food is the biggest contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss, yet we're wasting a third of everything that we produce. It's nonsensical. So it's a fun and delicious way to solve the problem, where we're not asking people to make concessions, but to value all of those natural resources and the human resources that we’re expending to produce food in the first place.

MJ: Drinking beer is nearly as much fun as cleaning your bathroom, but I would say that…! My ‘ah-ha’ moment was in Italy where I saw a shop owner pour a bucket of soapy brown water into the storm drain, that literally went straight onto a crowded beach. And I realised it’s such a massive disconnect between this person who owns the shop, who wants us to shop there, but really is there because of the beach. So the question was, how can I create a cleaning product that doesn't have an impact on the environment? And then think through everything that we're doing to try and remove and reduce the environmental impact. The logic was obvious, like making beer from discarded bread, but the tricky bit has been telling the story and getting people to come on the journey and that took a lot longer than I thought. But there are lots of similarities around there being a fundamental need to be more sustainable and then delivering a product and a solution. How was your journey to becoming B Corp certified?

LZ: I was previously a climate change consultant at the Carbon Trust and before that I did a master's in environmental sciences, so I’ve known about the movement for quite some time. And when we started Toast, I saw some really interesting brands that were engaging with it, for example my daughter was six months old, so I was using Ella's Kitchen products. Ben and Jerry's is another B Corp. It was then connecting the dots between these fantastic brands and this greater purpose that maybe I hadn't been aware of as a consumer. I did the B Corp impact assessment just to see what it was all about and it opened my eyes to the fact that, yes, we're a fantastic environmental business, but there's still a lot more that we could do. I used the assessment as a framework to help me build a responsible business and our environmental mission, then it was a natural step to then go through the certification process. And it was the most wonderful experience for me, because I love everything about B Corp.

MJ: Yeah, I mean, we get asked every day to join some form of eco club. When we started there were none so am delighted that others are now on the journey, but I'm quite strict on sticking with very few and sticking with the best. And B Corp, I think, arguably is the toughest. From a provenance perspective, very few companies have it. There are a lot of massive competitors of ours who can't get it. We've got high-level product endorsement and at the corporate level B Corp arguably is the best or the toughest to achieve in that respect. My key driver with any club is collaboration and conversation, and B Corp make all of the members do the work, which is genius. We're having conversations with people and then we feed back to B Corp, but it works for us because it enables us to have strong conversations with people we wouldn't ordinarily have. And that’s the only way we’ll get to net zero carbon, don’t you think?

LZ: It's going to be very challenging. It requires partnerships, not just between businesses, but with government and civil society as well. You know, we all have a role to play and I think the structural changes that are required are huge. More than we've experienced over the last year with the lockdowns. But I saw in the news this morning that the UK reported that we're 50% of the way there to our target. And we're seeing some other countries switching away from fossil fuels. China is making a huge investment in wind, for example. And we've also seen the investment community moving away from investment in the old structures. I think all the players are there, the people in organisations that want to make this happen, and we've set these ambitious targets. It will be interesting to see what happens at COP26, whether we and other countries go with ambitious enough plans. So I'm hopeful, but the scale of the challenge is not to be underestimated.

MJ: We're going to get there, but it's either going to be collaborative or incredibly painful. I mean, it's going to be painful whichever way we look at it, but we're going to get there. But I think, to your point, the level of disruption is something that nobody is currently thinking about. And I think that's where conversations like this are super important because we are going to need to disrupt so fundamentally everything that we think about

LZ: Yes, there's a huge element of behaviour change to overcome. For example, one of the reasons there is so much bread waste is that supermarkets purposefully fully stock their shelves to create a feeling of abundance and luxury when you shop. And then the bread is fresh daily, usually, which creates so much surplus. A lot of it goes to charities, but some of those charities have too much bread. I don't know if you know the app OLIO?

MJ: Yes.

LZ: Where people go and they actually collect food direct from supermarkets and other retailers and then they distribute it to the neighbourhood? There's always bread on there because there's so much of it. And it's a short shelf-life product. Often charities have to turn it away or they end up with a waste problem and cost for themselves. So we have to incentivise the reduction of overproduction in the first place, as well as incentivising the use of that waste, you know, shaming some of these companies and working with them to re-educate, to change people's expectations of how we buy our food.

MJ: Absolutely. The way we operate businesses, the supply chain, the way we consume, the entire infrastructure and framework needs to be completely unravelled and re-woven, to orient it to a new way of doing things.

LZ: Exactly.

MJ: Last question. As a consumer, what could I be doing differently to make more sustainable choices? Besides drinking lots of Toast ale, of course?

LZ: I would say, don't feel like you have to be perfect. Don't feel like you have to fix everything in your life, focus on one thing. For example, you can can look at one room in your house. What’s under the kitchen sink? What are my cleaning products? Replace one at a time and find what works for you. Think about what interests you, like fashion, then find out what brands are doing something, like looking at alternative materials. Or if you're a real foodie, focus on where your food’s coming from and what changes you can make. Everything needs to change, but each of us individually doesn't need to change everything all in one go.

MJ: Wise words. Thank you, Louisa, and all the best with Toast.

LZ: Thank you, Mark.

To summarise, green businesses must do more networking and showcasing of best practice so we can learn from each other and drive scale change. And as consumers, we have the power to move the needle, from deciding what cleaning products and beer to buy, to how products are packaged and so on, it has a massive ripple effect.

There are 500 times more bits of plastic in the ocean than there are stars in the galaxy.

The fact that 8 million tons of plastic waste is dumped in the ocean each year begs the question, why are our recycling rates so bad and how can I fix this? I am a huge buyer of plastic for all of our products which are packaged in plastic and in reality this isn’t going to change.  So being a totally focused eco business, I demanded from my supply chain that the plastic we use be only from post-consumer used recycled content (PCR). My belief is that if I can think it, it must therefore be possible.

13 billion single-use plastic bottles are sold globally every year and it’s anticipated that only between 3% and 9% are recycled. This needs to change.

In 2013, Coke and Unilever committed to using 15% recycled content in their packaging by 2025. Unsurprisingly when I said I wanted 100% PCR content I was told it was impossible.  Supplier after supplier, trade body after trade body and numerous Government officials all said no chance.  So not only demanding that it be 100% PCR, it also had to be Food Grade quality and 100% sourced and reprocessed in the UK – NOT going via China. They all laughed.

Eventually my belligerence paid off and a supplier said they would give it a go.  Yes it failed and then failed again. Getting a 100% PCR plus Food Safe grade was hard but third time lucky and 18 months after our first 100% sample had been attempted, we cracked it.

In December 2018 we switched all of our packaging from virgin plastic to 100% post-use recycled bottles. My little, London based SME had thrashed the global giants in creating a totally circular model, giving single-use plastic a second life. This proves that millions of tons can and must be redirected from going into landfill, incineration or the ocean and there’s a 70% carbon saving as well.

- Mark Jankovich, CEO