We’re Ready To Make Carbon History

At Medik8, we are passionate about science - and that goes for climate science too! Our commitment to sustainability has been a core part of our brand since its inception, as demonstrated by our recently-updated Sustainability Strategy. There are those who would argue the irrelevance of smaller companies like Medik8 committing to carbon reduction, suggesting we are merely a drop in the ocean compared to much larger emitters who are making very few or no changes at all.

However, at Medik8, we wholeheartedly believe that it is the responsibility of all companies, no matter their size, to take action on carbon reduction. 90% of businesses worldwide are SMEs meaning that, together, we have the power to make a real difference and prevent an irreparable gap in the world’s climate ambitions. At Medik8, we are excited to see how the targets we have set as part of our updated sustainability strategy will take us to new heights - or should we say ‘reductions’. In fact, they already have!

In launching our updated Sustainability Strategy at the end of last year, we set ambitious targets including becoming Net Zero by 2040 with a 50% reduction in our emissions by 2030. To help us on our mission, we have joined forces with almost 400 other businesses across the world in signing The Climate Pledge, therefore publicly committing to reaching Net Zero by 2040.

The first step for any company in reducing its carbon footprint is measuring its emissions and understanding where the opportunities are for reduction. We did just this in FY21 and successfully offset our emissions to become verified carbon neutral for the first time in 2022. We then took further action in FY22 and completed our updated carbon footprint report, which showed a 3% reduction in absolute emissions and a 18% reduction in emission intensity (tCo2e/£m revenue).

This may not initially seem like a lot, but it was certainly an important and motivating step within our wider sustainability mission. Although our brand-new Innovation Centre (which we opened in September 2022) will play a huge role in our carbon footprint reductions, its inception brought with it its fair share of embedded carbon emissions - particularly in terms of the fit-out itself and move to the facility. Even though this increased our overall carbon emissions for the year (despite being a ‘low carbon’ construction with a ‘Very Good’ BREEAM rating), our relentless work in reducing carbon emissions surrounding inbound transportation and material sourcing equated to enough emission reductions to counterbalance the one-off emissions from our Innovation Centre build. Now fully functional, our state-of-the-art facility will enable future carbon reduction thanks to its many sustainable features including solar panels, electric charging points, and reverse osmosis machines. And, of course, we will continue to explore other ways to reduce our operational emissions, through generating less waste and recycling water.

The key topic we focused on was reducing inbound airfreight - to zero! We planned better, we worked more closely with suppliers and we were very strict with ourselves not to fly any packaging or ingredients in. We also looked at our ingredients and packaging in great depth and made conscious choices that resulted in 9% and 13% reductions respectively. We also continue to purchase only renewable energy and have also stopped using gas. This means that our direct emissions, and those from our energy purchases, are almost down to zero!

You may ask: what does this mean for you, our valued customer? Even if you are more concerned about our products’ efficacy than their environmental credentials, know that we are working hard behind the scenes to achieve our ultimate sustainability goal: ensuring you never have to choose between either. And, of course, carbon reduction is an integral part of this mission. We also appreciate that this field, and its terminology, is complicated for most consumers - which is why our sustainability team is working tirelessly to share our targets and results as clearly and transparently as possible. And you don’t need to take just our word for it, because all of our measurements are conducted by an independent 3rd party company and are accredited in accordance with the internationally-recognised PAS2060 standard.

With Net Zero by 2040 at the forefront of our minds, we will continue to make strides on our carbon reduction journey in FY23. We will focus on engaging with all of our suppliers and collecting more accurate data to help us make better, more sustainably-minded choices in the future - asking questions such as: can we swap to packaging with a lower carbon footprint? Can we source ingredients closer to home to reduce transport miles? Our recent packaging change for Clarity Peptides, which became fully recyclable and reduced carbon emissions by 47%, proved that the answer is yes! Naturally, we are fully committed to making similar, results-driven changes in the future. Watch this space! Keep up to date with all of our sustainability targets and achievements at:

medik8.com/pages/eco