At No.1 Living, we’re working to leave no trace on the world: from how we source our ingredients, to the packaging we use and how we deliver it to your door.
As with any small business, we’re not perfect. Since starting this small business, we’ve learnt along the way that there is not always an obvious or straightforward answer to some of the environmental challenges we face.
However, we’ve consciously made a number of sustainable choices in our packaging and delivery options, which you can read below. Alongside this, we’re continually striving for improvement, and our environmental impact informs many of our business and product development decisions.
Cans
The cans we use for our sugar free kombucha are BPA free and made from 100% aluminium, which is infinitely recyclable. This means that it can be used again and again, without loss of quality, reducing the need for extraction of new metals (which is an energy intensive process).
Bottles
Our water kefir, organic kombucha, 750ml drinks and health shots are all carefully packaged in glass bottles. Like our aluminium cans, glass can be infinitely recycled without loss of quality, and is widely recycled.
We use recycled amber glass for our organic kombucha, which lets less light through. In doing so, it helps protect the precious living cultures bottled inside.
Labels
Our water kefir, organic kombucha and 750ml bottles all use paper labels that are made from 100% FSC certified material. FSC stands for 'Forest Stewardship Council', an international non-profit organisation that certifies forests all over the world to ensure they meet the highest environmental and social standards.
Our health shot bottles use an eco-designed material made from post-consumer recycled PET (90%). Though it’s not perfect, it means that material that would otherwise have been sent to landfill has instead been diverted back into the production line to be given a second life.
For our kombucha cans, we print our labels directly onto the metal surface instead of using paper labels whenever possible, which reduces the amount of material we need to use. However, for smaller brews and limited edition flavours, the smaller production volumes means that we need to use unprinted cans, which then require paper labels. These paper labels are, of course, also made from 100% FSC certified material.
Bottlecaps
The caps on all of our glass bottles are made from aluminium, so they are infinitely recyclable, just like our cans.
Delivery packaging
Our manufacturer for outer box packaging is FSC certified, which ensures they source wood from forests that meet the highest environmental and social standards.
To protect your delivery, we add paper void material made from 100% recycled paper. Even though it’s already been recycled, it can still be recycled again in a normal home recycling bin. It is also fully biodegradable.
You will, at times, see that plastic air cushions are used in your packaging. Though this isn’t ideal, these will be used sparingly and only when your delivery requires additional protection to reduce damage. This is because the energy and resources wasted when returning a damaged product is much greater than the energy and resources used in the use of plastic air cushions.
The cushions, which are made up of 99% air and just 1% film, are reusable and 100% recyclable at home: simply pop and put in the recycling bin. The packaging also weighs much less than paper, so has a lower environmental impact during shipping.
