Sustainability Policy

The following information is provided to help you understand our sustainability policy and how we implement this in our operations.

WHAT WE DO

BuyEcoGreen is a one–stop online specialist retailer featuring an amazing collection of innovative eco products for home, school, office, and art & craft. We aim to make it easy and cost effective to source the functional eco products you need to green your home, school, office or workplace. We help you to shop responsibly by doing the research and supplying the best genuine eco products around. We try to make it easy for you to satisfy your desire for more sustainable products that are competitive in price and performance.

buyecogreen.com.au is a division of Mehta Pty Ltd, ABN 49075654925

OUR SUSTAINABILITY VISION

Ecopaper is an innovative Australian business with a history of over 20 years in recycled paper, eco stationery manufacture and marketing of eco products. The founders, Con, Moni and Dave, started with a passion to introduce more sustainable office and gift stationery products to the Australian market. This passion has continued throughout the long journey and the ups and downs of the development of the green marketplace in Australia. Now the vision has grown to seeing people in homes, offices, schools and workplaces throughout Australia using eco products for their everyday needs and working and living more sustainably. In November 2018 the new owners, Mehta Pty Ltd, adopted this vision to continue on into the future.

Sustainability means: Conducting our business, and providing our customers with eco products that they need, in a way that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Our objectives:

To achieve best practice environmental practices across our operations, in addition to complying with all laws, regulation and industry standards
To implement programs that minimize our use of energy, water and non-renewable resources. Examples of this are use of both 100% GreenPower and installed Solar PV power; rainwater harvesting and reuse plus solar hot water heating at our head office; recycling and composting; using recycled office and other products.
To achieve reductions of waste produced in our operations by applying the principles of Refuse, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Examples of this include minimising packaging of products, minimising use of non-renewable forms of packaging, reusing packaging that we receive, using pre-used transport cartons and using recycled and biodegradable products throughout our operations.
To progressively utilise Enterprise and Life Cycle Analysis and Freight calculators for the estimated carbon emissions for the products that we supply to our customers and to make a contribution to offsetting these emissions and the emissions from our Operations with Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) or Verified Emission Reduction Units (VERs) or verified equivalent as a service to our customers and to the environment in which we operate. This is achieved by offsetting estimated operational carbon emissions and a contribution to product life-cycle carbon emissions with C3 - Community Climate Chest.
To only source and supply products that meet at least two of our environmental criteria: recycled, biodegradable, sustainable, organic, reusable, and have reduced environmental impact.
To source and promote certified eco products where possible, while recognising that certification is still a fairly new concept in this industry. Examples of this are our FSC-certified timber products; Nordic EcoLabel Markers.
To engage in ethical business relationships and practices, including support of selected environmental, community and aid organisations.
To take personal responsibility and to practice sustainability principles in our personal lives as well as our business and professional lives.
To communicate the policy and these objectives to our employees, contractors, suppliers, customers and the public in order to enhance the awareness of these groups to our commitment to responsible environmental and sustainability management.

SUSTAINABILTY POLICY - CARBON OFFSETTING

While our sustainability policy is aimed at reducing carbon emissions from our products and our activities to a minimum, there inevitably remain some emissions which need to be offset. At BuyEcoGreen we have voluntarily chosen to offset both emissions arising from our operations and to progressively make a contribution to the estimated life-cycle emissions from the products that we supply and the transport to the customer, so that you can order products that are at least partially offset for these emissions.

Carbon Offsets for Operations and Products

Operations: After applying our sustainability policy and reducing our carbon footprint as much as possible, we calculate our operational carbon emissions with the use of an Emissions Calculator for Organisations and then offset them with C3 - Community Climate Chest.

Products: The use of eco materials and processes typically result in products with lower life-cycle carbon emissions. But we go further - using a Life Cycle Analysis we progressively estimate the emissions resulting from the manufacture, transport, use and eventual disposal of the products that you order from us and then make a contribution to offsetting these emissions with VERs (Verified Emission Reduction units), VCUs (Verified Carbon Units) or verified equivalent.

Verified Carbon Standard and VCUs

The Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) provides a robust, new global standard for voluntary offset projects. It makes sure the carbon offsets businesses and consumers buy are trustworthy and have real environmental benefits. To be certified as VCS, offsets must be: real (have happened), additional (beyond business-as-usual activities), measurable, permanent (not temporarily displace emissions), independently verified and unique (not used or traded more than once to offset emissions).

What does the VCS do?

Delivers standardisation, transparency and credibility to the voluntary offset market.
Enhances business, consumer and government confidence in voluntary offsets by making it all measurable.
Creates a trusted and tradable voluntary offset credit; the Verified Carbon Unit (VCU).
Encourages more investment in emissions reductions and low carbon solutions.
Stimulates experiments and innovation in emission reduction technologies.
Provides a clear chain of ownership over voluntary offsets, so they can't be used twice. This is done through multiple VCS registries and a central project database that is open to the public.

Verified Emission Reductions (VERs)

Verified Emission Reductions or Voluntary Emissions Reductions are tradable credits for greenhouse emission reduction activities generated to meet voluntary demand for carbon credits by organisations and individuals wanting to offset their own emissions. VERs can be generated from projects to which a range of circumstances might apply, including: - are either based in a country that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol (e.g. USA) or does not have the infrastructure to support CDM (Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol) project development; - have not yet been registered under the CDM; - fall outside the scope of the CDM; - are too small to warrant the costs of CDM approval; - are specifically developed for the voluntary market.

BuyEcoGreen Carbon Emission Offsets To Date

So far (to end of 2018) we have Offset the following since 2008:

C3 - Community Climate Chest - 120 tonnes CO2-e from certified abatement projects
Carbon Neutral - 20 tonnes of CO2 to be sequestered by forest sinks; 80 tonnes of CO2 offset through accredited projects; 90 trees/shrubs established
Greenfleet - Total of 97.56 tonnes CO2-e offset; with 347 tress planted