British Corner Shop^® - Our Commitments

Our Vision & Mission

Our Vision : To revolutionise how the world connects with the best of British brands.

Our Mission : To make it easy for anyone, no matter where they are in the world, to access the quality British products they love, in the most efficient & sustainable way possible.

Our commitment to our customers

We are truly proud of the high-quality products that are produced by British brands, and we work hard to ensure these brands have the opportunity to sell their products on the international stage, and that those who miss or enjoy these products around the world have access to them.

We promise to do our best to give our customers the highest standard of products and customer service, qualities us Brits pride ourselves on! All while recognising and reducing the impact our business has on the world around us.

Our commitment to the environment

To fully acknowledge the impact our business has on the environment, and to constantly innovate and learn to better understand ways we can operate to reduce this impact.

At British Corner Shop we care about protecting the world in which we and our customer's live in and making our businesses as sustainable as possible is one of our biggest priorities.

Below are some of the ways we have already improved our level of sustainability;

Addressing Climate Change

We are committed to accurately calculating our carbon footprint and implementing the necessary changes to reduce this drastically over the next 5 years.

We will update this page with details on how we plan to do this once our carbon footprint calculation has been done.

As well as this, we are also working more closely with our external suppliers and couriers to develop joint initiatives to reduce C02 omissions.

Energy Efficiency

In our staff room we have opted for a mains fed water supplier for the water cooler, as opposed to the plastic bottle option we had previously.

All light bulbs in our main warehouse have now been replaced with energy efficient LED bulbs, with lighting in the offices to be replaced in due course.

Reducing our Reliance on Plastic

One of our biggest challenges is reducing our reliance on packaging materials such as bubble wrap (to protect glass such as jam jars) and plastic bags (to prevent liquid items ruining other products if damaged).

However, over the last few months we have made some positive steps to reduce the plastics in each box, which we have listed below;

Moved from plastic to paper-based tape
Introduced Geami paper, an FSC certified, eco-friendly alternative to bubble wrap
Reduced the thickness of the remaining plastics in the boxes
Moved to recycled card for any print materials
Now only use vegetable based litho inks

All these changes have equated to a reduction in 2139kgs of plastic waste over 1 year.

We are working very closely with our packaging supplier to consistently improve the sustainability of our packaging without affecting the quality of our service.

We regularly test new paper-based solutions and are committed to continually improving this area of our business.

Within our offices we have also completely removed the use of single use plastic cups (which used to be provided alongside the water cooler) and have instead provided each member of staff with a reusable water bottle, personalised mug, and thermal coffee mugs for the warehouse staff.

Waste Management

We have both plastic and cardboard balers within the warehouse to ensure both these materials are recycled efficiently.

Within our staff office we have removed all black bins from employees' desks, and have replaced with 1 central black bin, and 3 forms of recycling bin.

Food Wastage

We believe that no food that is safe for human consumption should go to waste. Which is why we regularly donate approximately £2500 worth of food each month to local charities such as 'Help Bristol's Homeless' and 'Roots Independent Street Team'.

We regularly donate excess pet food to local animal shelters such as the 'Bristol Cats and Dogs Home' and donate baby milk formula that we are unable to sell to the local zoos.

Mark Callahgan MD and Team at Wild Goose Cafe

Over the last year groups of British Corner Shop team members have also donated food and time to The Wild Goose Cafe in Bristol, which provides free hot meals, shower facilities, clothing and toiletries four days a week and six nights a week for those in extreme poverty and need.

Our commitment to help and support Bristol based charities

Working towards making a better Bristol is something that is very important to our business. Bristol is where most of our staff are from, and we're very proud to be representing Bristol on the exporting stage.

So, it was a unanimous decision by our staff to focus our charity efforts on those which help our local community.

With this in mind, we have chosen Caring in Bristol as our primary charity that we will be supporting in 2020!

Rays of Sunshine Children's Charity

We supported the Rays of Sunshine Children's Charity with a 1% Donation Day in February 2019.

Rays of Sunshine Children's Charity was formed in 2003 to brighten the lives of children who are living with serious or life-limiting illnesses, between the ages of 3-18. This particular charity helped support one of our very own British Corner Shop team members, so we were only too happy to do what we could to support this worthy cause.

1% Revenue Donation Days

As mentioned above, we already have two 1% Revenue Donation Days in the calendar for 2019, with many more to come in 2020.

We love this initiative as it's a very simple way to donate to a worthy cause which also allows our customers to actively get involved and feel like they've played a part in the end donation.

In fact, we like this method of fund raising so much we will be engaging other local Bristol businesses to run these days as well.

Our commitment to our staff

To keep working with staff to ensure British Corner Shop is a great place to work! We're committed to helping staff develop their careers, gain new skills, meet new people, create a good work/life balance and have fun while doing it!

For us to be able to deliver on the above commitment we offer staff a variety of benefits including;