Spotless Garments is revolutionising the laundry service market with its “best for customers and best for the planet” approach. Business is booming and their new electric delivery van is already showing impressive results, saving nearly £2,000 in fuel costs and over 3 tonnes of carbon CO2e in a year.
Something as everyday as doing the laundry has many environmental implications from wasted water and power to harmful substances in common detergents and particles from synthetic fabrics contaminating our waterways.
Anne Benson and her husband Martin live on a farm with their two sons, as well as sheep, chickens and pigs. Laundry is a regular requirement on the farm and whilst ironing an “un-cooperative” shirt, Anne got thinking: ‘there must be a better way to do this and reduce our impact on the environment?’ Spotless Garments was born.
Small firms can play a big part
It’s not just big companies that need to be changing their approach to the climate crisis, small companies can play a significant part too. Spotless Garments researched the best way to provide an excellent quality laundry service, whilst doing everything possible to be eco-friendly. With a £2,500 grant from Low Carbon Workspaces they bought an electric van to offer an easy pick-up service for their customers whilst eliminating harmful pollutants.
“The range is perfect,” explained Anne. “We can do a full 4-hour route, with a quarter of the battery charge remaining. It recharges through the day ready for our evening delivery round and it’s so quiet it doesn’t upset the neighbours when we’re out delivering at 6am or 10pm! Customers book a pick-up slot on our website which produces an optimised daily route for our van driver, ensuring we cover as few miles as possible.”
“Right from the start we knew we wanted to make our business as environmentally friendly and sustainable as possible. Our new electric van is a customer-facing symbol which demonstrates our genuine commitment to being eco-friendly, whilst encouraging our customers to consider the environment in everything they do too.”
Saving reinvested into other energy saving initiatives
Fuel savings made by Spotless Garments are being re-invested in other initiatives such as multi-use covers to replace traditional single-use plastic bags, and microbead plastic filtration to stop harmful plastic being fed into our waterways and destroying wildlife.
Still only in their second year, Spotless Garments are growing rapidly and looking to expand into larger premises. “Our customers really get the environmental message and we’ve been inundated with enquiries and new customers,” says Anne.
More information on Low Carbon Workspaces
Low Carbon Workspaces offer grant funding to businesses to invest in their work place, reduce their carbon footprint and open up opportunities to boost growth.
To learn more about grant funding, contact Matthew Archer, Project Officer for Buckinghamshire: 01494 927409 / Matthew.Archer@ngagesolutions.co.uk.
Visit www.lowcarbonworkspaces.co.uk for more information.