Happy Monday!

It’s Valentines Day! So, this week we’re looking at:

Can diamonds be forever? Milly Grace put a ring on it by aiming for circular silver.
What’s in a label anyway? Foundation Earth can help your brand find out.
In case you missed it: Circularity: Buzzword or Business Model?

> Good News Last Week

🎯 Smaller brands hitting the bullseye

⭐️ Larger brands taking important steps

⚡️ Relevant industry news, research and/or announcements

🎯 One Planet Pizza announced that they’re introducing carbon labels to their core pizza range from March 2022. Working with My Emissions, they’ve calculated up to 54% difference between their products against standard meat and dairy versions.

🎯 Harvest London certified as B Corp. Utilising vertical farming, they grow produce all year round.

🎯 Hiut Denim Co announced their Landfill Collection, a limited-edition micro collection of zero-waste men’s and women’s jeans. It’s their lowest-impact denim line to-date, as each pair is created using scraps compiled from Huit’s previous collections that would have otherwise gone to waste.

🎯 Oumph! revealed their new recyclable cardboard packaging, replacing their current plastic packaging.

⭐️ FrieslandCampina, a dutch multinational dairy cooperative, has announced that a three-year collaboration with Danone has resulted in a 17% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the dairy ingredients it provides to Danone. Both companies have committed to reaching net zero alongside improving soil health and biodiversity.

⭐️ Bacardi announced its plans to slash emissions via a mixed warmth and energy (CHP) plant at its rum distillery in Puerto Rico. This is part of Bacardi’s plans to halve operational emissions globally by 2025, in opposition to a 2015 baseline. This ambition has been verified in step with 1.5C by the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi).

⭐️ Kerry announced its €6 million programme to help milk suppliers in Ireland transition to more sustainable farming practices.

⚡️ California senate passed the Climate Corporate Accountability Act, requiring all corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue to disclose all scopes of their greenhouse gas emissions to the California Secretary of State's office.

> Click on each link to read more.

> Brand Spotlight

Can diamonds be forever? Milly Grace put a ring on it by aiming for circular silver.

Born out of a desire for sustainable jewellery at an affordable price, Milly Grace was founded in 2020 with the aim to shake up and reinvent the jewellery industry. Noticing the gap between affordability and products that put people and the planet first, founder Emily Robinson had a vision to fill this gap. Offering a range that puts quality, transparency and inclusivity first, her aim has been to take climate action from the outset. Now, the positive impact of the brand is growing simultaneously with the business.

How is Milly Grace aiming to create a positive impact?

Diamonds aren’t forever

This starts with responsible sourcing. Branded as “conflict-free,” all Milly Grace’s diamonds are lab-grown and gemstones are ethically sourced. There are heavy costs attached to mining diamonds, with the shadow of exploitation to communities and scars to the land and ecosystems. Milly Grace gives consumers the option to choose products which are chemically identical to lab-grown diamonds, without the negative associated impacts.

Going circular

At the forefront of Milly Grace is ensuring that as the business grows, the positive impact of the brand grows simultaneously. To create a supply chain resilient to the increasing demand for recycled silver, Milly Grace has launched a Recycle Scheme. In exchange for a gift voucher, consumers become part of the circular narrative behind the jewellery that they wear. As recycled silver produces two-thirds less CO2 than mined silver, this is a no-brainer for Milly Grace in reducing their footprint. However, they don’t just rely on their customers to aim for circularity - all their sterling silver is 100% recycled. Soon, they’re aiming for all their metal to follow suit.

Carbon positive workforce

With certainty about zero conflict and exploitation to the materials used in the range, responsible sourcing brings the opportunity to achieve carbon neutral status. Rising to this, Milly Grace are Carbon Neutral Certified. Additionally, with a mangrove tree planted for every order, Milly Grace has planted over 19,500 trees in partnership with Ecologi in the last 12 months to support the Eden Reforestation Project.

Plastic free packaging

A paperless dispatch and plastic free unboxing experience leaves Milly Grace customers with 100% recycled and recyclable FSC certified boxes. Going one step further, they’re rolling out organic cotton delivery pouches - aim to reduce the weight of each delivery, and so reduce emissions generated in transportation.

Who else has stepped into the ring?

Pandora has switched to lab-grown diamonds, with their smallest ring in their Brilliance collection having a carbon equivalent to a litre of milk.
B-Corp Aether Diamonds removes 20 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air for every carat of diamond, produced by filtering carbon material from the air.

Interested? Read more…

Support Milly Grace via their shop:

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*A Milly Grace Silver Ring. Source: millygrace.co.uk*

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> Quick Take

What’s in a label anyway? Foundation Earth can help your brand find out.

Eco labelling is fast becoming big news. The concept is simple enough: broadly equivalent to nutritional labelling, these tags illustrate a food product’s environmental footprint across its lifecycle from provenance to shelf. It’s not entirely novel, with supermarket-favourites such as Quorn, Oatly and One Planet Pizza proudly displaying their carbon credentials in the last two years.

Now, however, not-for-profit Foundation Earth (with the notable backing of food giants Unilever and Nestle as well as the UK Government) are well on their way to making this a basic requirement across Europe.

What is Foundation Earth’s ‘eco-labelling’, and how can your SME get involved?

Foundation Earth is a non-profit organisation focused on issuing front-of-pack environmental labelling. With its first pilot launched in August 2021 utilising a traffic-light system developed by Mondra, they’re currently undertaking a pioneering R&D programme with the goal of creating a fully automated environmental scoring system for 2022.

Unlike similarly popular carbon labelling, Foundation Earth aims to create a more comprehensive grading system, based on the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) European Methodology and covering 16 categories like Water Scarcity and Ionising Radiation. Even with the best intentions and resources (check out our MEASURE database) source-to-shelf environmental accounting is undeniably difficult for small brands. By signing up to the scheme, you can be confident that your business’ environmental impact is measured accurately and completely - by Mondra for a subscription cost. See how MIGHTY have certified their products in January 2022.

Learn more about how it works here, and register for more information here.

Great for marketing means great for business

Foundation Earth’s grading system is visually striking. Providing tiered ratings from A to G and colour-coded, it’s a tag that stands out loud and clear on food packaging. It’s also, crucially, visually similar to nutritional tags that consumers are used to interpreting.

*Foundation Earth’s Eco Labels. Source: foundation-earth.org*

Brands often have limited resources or opportunities to market the results of their hard work. Space on products themselves is often contested real-estate for other (often legally required) information brands must display. Foundation Earths’ label communicates climate credentials in a way consumers are increasingly looking for.

The opportunity to utilise a system backed by such incredible resources is one that should not be missed by small brands. There are many companies assisting SMEs with labelling their products - Foodsteps, CarbonCloud and My Emissions are early pioneers. However, with Foundation Earth’s pilot scheme aiming to be rolled out across Europe in 2022, now is the perfect time to join Finnebrogue, Mighty and The Meatless Farm on the list of pioneering brands taking this route to forge ahead of the market.

What’s next? Contact Foundation Earth to find out more.

> In case you missed it

🌱 Circularity: Buzzword or Business Model?

Following the Footprints

🌱 Putting a ring on it: Milly Grace are…