Yes, we have many new eco-friendly products each month. All our paper and most of our wood products come from sustainable forests. This is guaranteed by the FSC-logo, a small tree on the packaging. We are also increasing the number of products made from recycled and renewable materials and materials that can be easily recycled. You can also find many alternatives to single-use plastic items in our stores. But no matter what you buy – you can be sure that we are doing our best to make every single product eco-friendly.

Yes, we have ambitious sustainability targets for the years 2022 and 2025. For example, by 2022, we want to reduce our plastic packaging materials by 20 %. Within this year we also want to achieve at least 50 % renewable energy in our warehouses, stores, and offices. By 2025, we want to use 50 % less plastics than we do today. Of the remaining products, at least 50 % should be made of recycled plastics. That means, that at least half of our plastic products will be made from plastic waste in 2025. We also aim to reduce our single-use products by 50% by 2025.
You can read about these targets and many more here: https://flyingtiger.com/pages/sustainability

Plastic is a good material in many ways. It is light-weight, durable and can be used for many different things. However, we want to reduce the volume we use and only use it wisely when we do. We are working to replace a large volume of plastic products with more eco-friendly materials and have a strategic target to reduce our plastic products by 50% by 2025. We also have a target for 50% of the remaining plastic to be recycled plastic by 2025.

We are working to reduce the amount of plastic in our packaging. We have a goal to reduce the volume of plastic in our packaging by 20% by 2022. However, we expect to meet this target well ahead of schedule. In almost all these cases, the packaging is replaced with paper or cardboard which is biodegradable and requires considerably lower greenhouse gas emissions to produce.

Reducing our usage of single-use products is a big area of focus for us. Between 2019 and 2025 we aim to reduce the number of single-use products we sell by 50%, in 2020 we were already over 10% of the way there. This target has resulted in some amazing new products, from reusable baking paper to beeswax food wrap to rechargeable batteries.

There are some items it is very difficult to make multiple use, such as plasters/band-aids however, we hope that by 2025 the remaining single-use products will be made of eco-friendly materials or will be entirely essential products (ideally also made of eco-friendly materials).

We focus on making our plastic bags as eco-friendly as possible. In 2021 we are phasing in new carrier bags made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, that are 100% recyclable and highly durable. We also offer an amazing range of multi-use cotton tote bags that we encourage customers to use.

Bioplastics is a term that describes many different types of plastics. All these have in common that they are not made from fossil fuel oil. Instead, they are produced by using oil from, for example sugarcane, which grows on fields. However, there are strong disadvantages. Growing sugarcane for producing plastic products takes away land that could be used to grow food. Also, it is often unclear in which waste bin bioplastics should be thrown. Some kinds are like normal plastics and should therefore be thrown in the plastic waste. Other kinds should be industrially composted, meaning that they should be thrown away together with organic waste. As a result, it is very hard to correctly throw away bioplastics. However, if it ends up in the wrong waste bin the material can have bad impacts for our recycling systems. Therefore, we have decided to stop using bioplastic and instead focus on a general reduction in plastic products.

Biodegradable/compostable plastics means plastic which will degrade or compost just like food does. However, the difference to food is that these kinds of plastic need very special conditions to compost. Currently, only few industrial waste plants can meet these conditions. As a result, these types of plastics are often not handled correctly in the waste system. Therefore, we have decided not to use biodegradable or compostable plastics.

We are worried about climate change. And we want to help avoid its serious consequences for the planet and people. Therefore, we aim to do our best to minimize our carbon emissions. We try to do this in every step of creating and selling our products and we are doing a lot. You can read more on our website: https://flyingtiger.com/pages/sustainability.

In transportation, we want to reduce our emissions by choosing eco-friendly modes of transport whenever possible. Currently, we are using ships for about 70% of our transports which have considerably lower emissions per kilometre compared to road freight. When we look at the greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation of our products from China and from Europe, the picture isn’t so black and white. Some of our goods with limited road transport prior to shipping in China and then limited road transport upon arrival in Europe have lower emissions than some of our goods transported long distances across Europe. It is also important to consider that often raw materials are produced in Asia and shipped to European factories for production. We believe overall the best option is for us to support the sustainable transition of the transportation methods we already use.

Yes, we do. Our store furniture is made from (FSC certified) wood and metal and comes in pallet sizes to optimize transportation. It is both highly durable, but also fully recyclable. The paper which we use in our stores comes from sustainable forestry (FSC certified), so wrapping paper and receipts are eco-friendly. But this is just a couple of our considerations, find out more here: https://viewer.ipaper.io/flying-tiger/corporate/annual-report-2020/?page=34

Wood and paper are fantastic materials because they grow naturally and can be recycled. We want to do all we can do keep forests in a good shape. Therefore, we joined the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) in 2017. In 2020, 79% of our wood and paper products were made from FSC certified wood and paper and we aim to reach 100% by 2022. You will notice their tree icon on most of our wooden and on all paper products. This tree guarantees our customers that the product comes from sustainable forests. It shows that the management of the forest treats people, animals, and the environment well. The tree symbol also proves that forest workers receive proper training, enjoy good health and safety conditions, and are compensated with fair wages.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) label, which is a small tree symbol, ensures the wood or paper in that product is sourced in accordance with the FSC’s ten principles, which cover social and environmental areas. It ensures the sourcing of these items didn’t harm the world’s forests, supported the protected of the eco-systems surrounding forests and protected the social and environmental conditions of workers and local communities, including the land rights of indigenous communities. You can read more about the FSC principles here https://www.fsc-uk.org//en-uk/about-fsc/what-is-fsc/fsc-principles.

In 2020, we joined the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) supporting their work to improve the palm oil industry. Most of our products containing palm oil have RSPO certified palm oil and we aim to reach 100% by 2022. Switching from palm oil to other alternatives can cause greater demand on other environmental resources, instead we think it is a better option to improve the sustainability of the palm oil industry.

We have a social compliance process, which aims to ensure that factories we work with can meet our requirements, and that the people producing our products are treated with respect and provided with fair and safe working conditions. This process involves a Code of Conduct, factory audits and a process for improvements and remediation. You can read more about our extensive social compliance process here https://flyingtiger.com/pages/sustainability or in our annual report: https://viewer.ipaper.io/flying-tiger/corporate/annual-report-2020/?page=22 (page 31, 33 and 35).

Our social compliance process has an improvement process for any factories that are not A-rated (meaning that they have no areas of improvement). These factories are given a corrective action plan which they must implement, and they are re-audited to check this happens. We also have, what we call a supplier academy, which runs frequent training sessions on topics such as sustainability, compliance, and quality for our suppliers! We are also working on a collaboration with an NGO called NEST, to enhance the conditions for Homeworkers (handcraft workers operating out of their homes). You can read about all of these activities in our annual report here: https://viewer.ipaper.io/flying-tiger/corporate/annual-report-2020/?page=22