🌱 How Isle of Wight Distillery are crafting a community spirit, and 2023's FMCG Legal Pipeline Part 4 - TCFD.
Featuring Abel & Cole, Seasalt, The Body Shop, Decathalon and more...
Happy Tuesday!
This week we cover:
Quick Take: 2023’s FMCG Legal Pipeline Part 4: TCFD.
Brand Spotlight: Isle of Wight Distillery: A True Community Spirit
In case you missed it: 🌱 Packaging and People Power: 2023's FMCG Legal Pipeline Part 3, and we catch up with Rebecca Ghim of The Ferm.
> Good News Last Week
🎯 Seasalt launched their resale platform, selling pre-loved and repaired clothing. This comes after launching their takeback service with Reskinned to collect pre-loved Seasalt clothing items to be repaired. Since launching, 2000 clothing items have been donated and repaired and can now be sold on their new platform!
⭐️ The Body Shop announced they’re expanding their refill program to include makeup. In 800 of their global stores, their Peptalk Lipstick can be refilled in its 100% recycled aluminum case. This initiative forms part of their goal to save 25 tons of plastic each year.
⭐️ H&M launched a new range of compostable baby clothes made from organic cotton. This collection has received Gold status from the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. To achieve this status, the clothes were analysed across five sustainability indicators (material health, circularity, air and climate protection, water and soil stewardship, and social fairness).
⭐️ Sainsbury’s announced they’re removing trays from their whole chicken packaging, reducing their plastic packaging by 140 tonnes annually. This change is part of Sainsbury’s goal to reduce their own-brand plastic packaging by 50% by 2050.
⭐️ Decathlon UK, in collaboration with Rentle, launched their sports rental service. This service aims to make sports more accessible whilst reducing sporting goods consumption, and is a step towards creating a more circular business model. Implementation comes after the successful trial of the service at four of their stores.
⚡️ Wrap has released their latest UK Textiles Policy Recommendations reports (Textiles Policy Options and Cost Benefit Analysis reports), which investigates reducing the environmental impact of textiles. Wrap suggests five key policy implementations: an Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme, ecodesign criteria and complementary product labeling, restrictions on products sent to landfills and incinerators, funding for recycling infrastructure, and an increase in textile collection banks.
> Click on each link to read more, and view this roundup on LinkedIn too.
> Quick Take
2023’s FMCG Legal Pipeline Part 4: TCFD.
The sustainability world loves an acronym - ESG, CSR, SDG, CPD… you get the idea. Often they are useful (especially when it comes to making reading about each a bit more digestible), however, one that seems a little more ambiguous than others is the TCFD. So, in true Following the Footprints style, we’ve made it our mission to understand what the TCFD really is, and then share our knowledge with you. Let’s get started…
What is the ‘TCFD’, and what’s the purpose?
The Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures (TCFD) is first and foremost a working group. Myth one busted: for a solid year I (Emma) thought it solely was a framework, given the way people spoke about it. It consists of 31 members across the G20 and was established by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) in December 2015 with the aim to review and integrate how the financial sector can take account of climate related risks and opportunities.
Since then, the task force has made recommendations that incorporate more effective climate-related disclosures to promote more informed investment and in turn, enable stakeholders to better understand the financial system and businesses exposures to climate-related risks. These recommendations are structured around four areas that represent core elements of all business operations and are supported by the requirement to disclose progress in financial filings.
What are the categories and recommended disclosures?
Does the TCFD affect my brand?
Globally, the TCFD is not a mandatory requirement. However, in the UK it is mandatory for a growing list of businesses following COP26 (read the news at the time here), so we’re focusing on the UK’s requirements today.
In the UK, TCFD is a mandatory requirement for the following types of organisations, when each has over 500 employees:
Listed companies, bankers and insurers (those companies that are already required to produce a non-financial information statement);
Alternative Investment Market (AIM) companies;
LLPs with a turnover of over £500m;
UK registered companies not included above with a turnover of over £500m.
My business doesn’t fit the criteria for TCFD, what should I take from this?
Get ahead of the game. It’s more than likely, in order to meet the UK’s own Net Zero goals, that this mandate will be rolled out to more businesses by 2025, so our own recommendation here is to use the framework to begin to support your net zero journey and align with TCFD early.
For when I do need to report, what do I actually need to do?
This mandate came into effect in the UK on 6 April 2022 and are applicable for accounting periods that begin on or after this date – so if your financial year ends in December and you fit the criteria above, 2023 is the first reporting period.
Unlike other frameworks or tax submissions like packaging compliance, the TCFD doesn’t follow a mandatory reporting structure. Instead, the TCFD aims to integrate into how your business already reports to Companies House, similar to the likes of SECR and Section 172 (we cover this here).
So, exactly how you report is up to you, but you need to ensure you cover all of the disclosures. We would recommend structuring the report across the four disclosure categories as a starting point. You can read PWC’s first report here for inspiration.
How do I get started, and ahead of the game?
We would recommend reading the most up to date TCFD recommendations and overview or the full report. Still overwhelmed by acronyms? During this process, we came across this sustainability acronym directory from KERAMIDA - a women owned, sustainability focussed consulting company in the US. There are also an abundance of online courses to build understanding and knowledge of the TCFD here and the FRC Lab’s guide on how to develop practices aligned with for TCFD reporting here.
> Brand Spotlight
Isle of Wight Distillery: A True Community Spirit
From The Uncommon to Sapling Spirits to Karma, premium drinks brands are leading the way in the transition to a sustainable consumer goods industry. Front and centre of this change is Isle of Wight Distillery. Founded in 2014 by brewer Xavier Baker and viticulturist Conrad Gauntlett, the brand’s award-winning Mermaid gin is truly a materialisation of the pairs’ spirit. With a mission to ‘produce premium spirits in a sustainable, community-minded way’, Isle of Wight Distillery’s business is just as worth diving into as their gin. Let’s take a look…
Transparent reporting:
Last year, Isle of Wight Distillery earned B-Corp status with the highest rating of any English distillery. The bedrock of their 88.6 B-Corp rating was a comprehensive carbon accounting strategy. Partnering with Good Business, the brand produced a rigorous report detailing precisely their footprint, methodology, and reduction measures.
Isle of Wight Distillery partly relies on offsetting schemes to achieve its net zero status, Crucially, however, the methodology used to determine their effectiveness (and additionality) is detailed in their impact report, which you can read here. They’re also planning to be Net Zero by 2030 by setting near-term Science Based Targets aligning with the 1.5 degree pathway - aiming to eliminate their Scope 1 and 2 emissions in the process. This is no small feat, and we’re excited to see their progress.
Partnerships and stewardships:
Isle of Wight Distillery’s mitigation efforts are bolstered by locally-focused and (in keeping with their mission) community-minded schemes. Working with Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, the brand funds a restoration scheme for the Solent’s depleting Seagrass meadows. The ‘lungs of the sea’, Seagrass is responsible for ~15% of the ocean’s total carbon capture ability, and has particular local importance in the Solent.
The brand’s dedication to Britain’s waterways doesn’t end there. Isle of Wight Distillery’s are a partner of ocean steward powerhouses Surfers Against Sewage, campaigning for ocean protection and taking action with organised cleanups.
Circularity and community spirit:
For Isle of Wight distillery, circularity doesn’t just mean reducing and reusing, but making the circle itself as small and local as possible too. This does more than minimise transport and material waste; it embeds a community mindset into their business model.
Their international award-winning Mermaid gin bottle is a great example. Not only is it innovative (with a plastic-free seal specially designed by Viscose Closures) and fully recyclable, but the bars in which they’re sold are encouraged to then sell the bottles on to raise funds for local charities. This thoughtful approach to the lifecycle of their products engages their customers, guarantees circularity and benefits their community all at once. It’s not just humans who benefit from this approach - Isle of Wight Distillery have even found a local company to collect their excess cardboard to use for horse bedding.
Now stocked in 26 countries (and 23 states in the US alone), Isle of Wight Distillery is a perfect reminder that a staunch focus on supporting their local area and having a community mindset doesn’t hold businesses back from international success.
Take a closer look at Isle of Wight Distillery:
> In case you missed it
🌱 Packaging and People Power: 2023's FMCG Legal Pipeline Part 3, and we catch up with Rebecca Ghim of The Ferm.
Featuring The Ferm, Honestly Tasty, Wild and more...
> Follow up with…
Article: Decarbonisation through software: A climate optimist’s mission
Podcast: Net Zero: A Very British Problem
Team Tool: Scope 3 Maturity Benchmark
Digital Tool: Backspace