Sustainability at Gibsons - Our Green Game Plan
As a proud B Corp, minimising our environmental impact is really important for our business. Here are some of the things we are doing to help:
Protecting Trees
We have partnered with One Tribe so for every order that is placed through our website, we make a donation to protect 100sqm of rainforest, the equivalent of five trees.
One Tribe’s work spans far and wide, from protecting Amazonian rainforests, biodiverse habitats, indigenous communities and endangered species. This work is 76x more impactful than planting a new tree. Planting 1 tree will absorb 53.1 kilos of carbon by 2030, yet protecting 20 trees absorbs 3900 kilos of carbon by 2030.
You can read more about this collaboration here.
The Perfect Puzzle Project
Our mission is to provide the perfect puzzle for our customers, whilst reducing our impact on the planet.
- By the beginning of 2020, we had removed the shrink-wrap plastic that secured our puzzle boxes and replaced it with bio-degradable stickers, which saves over half a million metres of plastic per year.
- We reduced the size of our puzzle boxes by an average of 29% so that the puzzle pieces fit perfectly inside. We can now fit more puzzles into containers which has reduced our carbon emissions when transporting our products from factory to warehouse.
- We manufacture our jigsaw puzzles in the UK and Europe and they are always transported by road, never plane. This keeps our carbon emissions at one tenth of what they would be if we transported by air.
- We use vegetable-based inks on our puzzle boxes and pieces. Our puzzles are made from is FSC paper and we use the thickest, recycled board available on the market.
We are removing the plastic bag that holds our puzzle pieces. Plastic bags are currently being phased out completely and replaced with paper bags, which are easy to recycle in your home recycling. For any older puzzles that still contain plastic bags, we urge you to recycle this bag at your local supermarket or reuse it to hold your pieces when your puzzle is complete.
Watch our YouTube video about our Planet-Friendly Puzzles here
Plastic-free Games
We've been working hard to replace all single-use plastic in our games too and now use paper 'belly bands' to secure playing cards and cardboard inserts to replace plastic ones.
Sustainability at Gibsons HQ
Here are some of the ways we make the Gibsons Head Office a sustainable place to work:
- Our building has solar panels to produce the energy we use.
- We get our milk delivered in reusable glass bottles.
- We use bars of soap and responsibly-sourced toilet paper.
- 75% of our office waste is recycled thanks to First Mile.
- The waste that is not recycled is transported to an Energy From Waste facility where it's safely incinerated. The process generates electricity and heat that powers homes in the UK, and by-products residues are used in the construction industry.
- Our energy is sourced from renewable energy supplier who use sustainable methods such as solar, wind and hydro.
- We use LED energy saving lightbulbs in our office.
- Our Cycle2Work scheme encourages our team to cycle to work rather than drive.
The Future
We choose to work with partners who are aligned with our sustainability values. We are committed to understanding our complete supply chain and where we can do better.
We will be working on a roadmap to further reduce our impact as we approach B Corp recertification.
We are setting carbon reduction targets with the support of the SBTi, The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Their work:
- Defines and promotes best practice in emissions reductions and net-zero targets in line with climate science.
- Develops standards, tools and guidance to enable companies and financial institutions to set science-based targets in line with the latest climate science.
- Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, SBTi Services, assesses and validates companies’ and financial institutions’ targets.
I agree with another responder about the bags. I replace the pieces in the bag (or use a new sealable bag) and pass the puzzle on to friends or charity shops so that they get used several times without pieces getting lost as they might if no bag used. Otherwise I love everything that you do and will be doing.
I like the 500 pieces and often buy the x4
hope you will continue to wrap separately in a plastic bag or I could be interesting 🤪
keep producing jigsaws that keep together when doing them so they don’t fall apart like other producers love Gibsons👍
Please Gibsons, ensure that the paper pictures in your puzzle boxes are of a reasonable size. Much as I’m happy to save the planet, my eyesight isn’t what it once was!
Great to see you being so inspired by other puzzle brands. I really liked the tree planting initiative by Cloudberries and now you have launched something very similar.
Very impressed by your green plan. Particularly like the smaller boxes as they also make home storage easier! Any plans for a shallower box next?
Cant understand why you are changing the bag as I still keep it to put the jigsaw back in seems a waste of time and effort
VERY impressed with your green efforts,well done.
I note that other manufacturers e .g. Otter house (wash my mouth out) are already using paper bags for their pieces.During lock downs have completed a number of your puzzles and I love them. Thanks. 😷
Well done Gibsons, keep up the good work! You faced some difficulties last year but you overcame them and are now back to your efficient selves. So excited about the new jigsaws too.
Sometime ago I got a voucher for a replacement puzzle as the one I got had a missing part
I’ve not had success with it