Yorkshire eco-cleaning product manufacturer reduces carbon emissions by over 40% in just three years

Yorkshire-based eco-cleaning product manufacturer Bio-D has reduced its carbon emissions per single product produced by over 40% in the last three years.

The achievement is one of many detailed in its sixth annual Sustainability and Impact Report, which was published on the Bio-D website this week. Bio-D was the first eco-cleaning company to publish an annual sustainability report detailing its goals and achievements, validating its sustainability credentials.

2024 also saw its closed loop ‘No Brainer Container’ initiative save over 7.8 tonnes of plastic by encouraging customers to return their 20 litre refill containers to be cleaned, refilled and reused.

This reflects an increase of over 70% in numbers of containers re-laundered from 2023 - 2024 and saved the equivalent CO2 as 995 trees growing in a year. Since its launch in 2021, the initiative has seen over 14,500 containers returned and reused.

Its focus on refill-sized products - Bio-D offers five litre and 20 litre options, as well as IBCs for wholesalers - also saved over 1.75 million consumer-sized bottles from being used in 2024.

Lloyd Atkin, managing director of Bio-D, said of this year’s report: “Releasing our annual Sustainability and Impact Report gives us the opportunity to reflect on the past year and evaluate our achievements, learnings and goals for the year ahead.

“A key highlight for me in 2024 was receiving a King’s Award for Enterprise in the Sustainable Development category, an achievement that represents a true team effort and our shared commitment to a sustainable future.

“Incorporating post-consumer recycled plastic to our 750ml caps has also been a significant achievement over the past year. This has been a key goal for us and something we have been working on with packaging suppliers for several years.

“There are huge challenges around the strength and durability of PCR caps, which has required extensive trialling and testing, so reaching 50% PCR content is a big accomplishment.”

Using PCR plastic in its caps has resulted in a saving of over three quarters of a tonne of CO2 emissions.

Lloyd continued: “However, whilst we have some brilliant sustainability milestones, we’re going into 2025 with even more goals in place to further improve our credentials.

“These include investing in more carbon emissions projects to compensate for unavoidable emissions and commissioning a fresh review by an independent consultant to see what new energy savings can be made on site.”

Securing B Corp certification in 2022, Bio-D’s mission is to manufacture effective, natural and ethical cleaning products that don’t cost the Earth. Additional achievements over the past year detailed in its Sustainability and Impact Report include:

• Generating over 18% more solar energy than is used on-site - meaning Bio-D not only sustainably powered its operations, but also contributed clean energy back to the grid, reinforcing the brand’s role as a leader in environmental responsibility
• Cutting waste CO2 emissions to less than a third of 2023 levels, as a result of careful planning and proactive sharing of materials no longer needed
• Saving over 55 tonnes of CO2 emissions by using post-consumer recycled plastic in its bottles and caps
• Reducing business travel by more than 30% over the past year
• 50% of staff now actively use sustainable transport options
• Reducing water-related CO2e by 20%

Read Bio-D’s Sustainability and Impact Report here. For more information on Bio-D visit www.biod.co.uk.