- John Lewis is the largest UK retailer to join the Canopy Pack4Good initiative
- Signatories commit to ensuring no packaging materials derive from ancient and endangered forests
- The move is a positive step forward in protecting vital biodiverse forests
Marking Earth Day 2024, John Lewis has become the largest UK retailer to sign up to Canopy’s Pack4Good initiative - a commitment to sourcing better packaging materials and ensuring the protection of critical forests around the world.
Signatories will commit to ensure none of their packaging is sourced from ancient and endangered forests in their textile and packaging supply chains, in partnership with environmental not-for-profit, Canopy.
Marija Rompani, Director of Sustainability & Ethics at the John Lewis Partnership, said,
"I'm excited that John Lewis is building on our existing work with Canopy, by now also supporting the Pack4Good initiative. We’re committed to protecting and restoring nature, and we constantly strive to reduce and improve our packaging.
“Signing up to the Pack4Good initiative is a truly positive step forward on our journey to ensuring all our paper-based packaging is from a more sustainable source."
Keeping forests standing is the quickest, cheapest, and most effective way to stabilise the Earth’s climate. Forests are the lungs of the planet. They absorb carbon, mitigate the effects of climate change, provide habitat for an estimated 80% of the world’s terrestrial species, regulate water cycles, and are foundational to life on our planet.
Nicole Rycroft, Founder and Executive Director of Canopy said,
“We are so pleased to welcome John Lewis into the Canopy fold on Earth Day. There is no better time to keep forests standing and to transform today’s take-make-waste supply chains that underpin the global climate and biodiversity crises. NextGen production is the future - we’re excited to expand our community of partners working to build a better future for our planet.”
In another step to control packaging use, we recently removed paper delivery notes from John Lewis customer orders. The change will save up to 26 million pieces of paper, equating to a possible 115 tonnes of material, and 155 tonnes in carbon emissions saved - the equivalent energy as boiling the kettle more than 10 million times.
Notes to Editors:
- John Lewis is one of 16 signatories globally, including Zadig & Voltaire, C&A and House of Hackney. Canopy’s press release can be found here.
- In June 2023, the John Lewis Partnership became the first retailer in the UK to have its net-zero science-based targets validated by the official body that validates climate targets - The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
- You can find out more about John Lewis’ initiatives around sustainability and ethics on our website, here.
- According to Canopy, 3.4 billion trees are cut down every year to make man-made cellulosic fibre (MMCF)-based textiles, like viscose and rayon, and for paper packaging. That is equivalent to two football pitches worth of forests being cut down every second.
About John Lewis
John Lewis operates 34 shops plus one outlet across the UK as well as johnlewis.com and John Lewis Financial Services. The John Lewis Partnership owns and operates two of Britain's best-loved retail brands - John Lewis and Waitrose. The Partnership is the largest employee-owned business in the UK, with over 74,000 employees who are all Partners in the business. The Partnership is purpose-driven, existing to create a fairer and more sustainable future for our Partners, customers, suppliers and communities.
About Canopy
Canopy is a solutions-driven not-for-profit environmental organisation dedicated to protecting forests, species, and climate. Canopy has collaborated with more than 900 companies to develop cutting-edge environmental policies that transform unsustainable supply chains, spark innovative solutions, and protect our world’s remaining Ancient and Endangered Forests.
