SUSTAINABILITY

At Oppo Brothers, our mission is to make the world feel good.

A core part of this is our commitment to behaving in a sustainable way. As a small, family-run ice cream business, we do make a conscious effort to minimise our impact on the environment and empower the people involved in our business.

We are now a B Corp-certified company which means we're officially a business that's a force for good.

As you might know, B Corp involves assessing a company’s performance against five key categories: governance, workers, customers, community, and the environment. This certification means we're meeting the highest standards of social and environmental performance, and has given us all increased momentum to continue what we are doing. To read more about B Corp specifically, see our blog here. Whilst we aren't perfect, we have identified five key focus areas where we can have the greatest impact:

  • REDUCE OUR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT & CARBON EMISSIONS

  • COMMIT TO SUSTAINABLY-SOURCED, RECYCLABLE PACKAGING 

  • SUPPORT RESPONSIBLE MILK PRODUCTION AND RESPECT THE WELFARE OF ANIMALS & PEOPLE

  • REDUCE OUR WATER & ENERGY CONSUMPTION 

  • MINIMISE FOOD WASTE


To tackle the first key goal to reduce our environmental impact and carbon emissions, we're working on a sustainability initiative we call PROJECT TREE60.

Tree planting and reforestation are fundamental to the survival of the planet and it’s also the most immediate way that Oppo can make a genuine difference to our carbon footprint. We’re therefore setting a goal - to plant 60,000 trees by the end of 2023 in the Oppo Feel Good Forest.
The Oppo Feel Good Forest is a virtual forest made up of tree planting and reforestation projects that we will either fully own and implement or help to fund.

But what impact can 60,000 new trees make?

The amount of CO2 a tree will offset depends on many factors, such as the type of tree, where it is planted and the amount of room it has to grow. On average, one broad leaf tree will absorb in the region of 1 tonne of carbon dioxide during its full life-time (approximately 100 years).  On top of all the other ways we've built sustainability into our business, the planting of 60,000 trees will therefore have a significant impact on offsetting our carbon footprint.

How will you plant the trees?

We will achieve our goal in two ways:

Direct planting

* Embedding restoration into our business by partnering with TreeSisters to actively reforest

* Planting trees ourselves as a team

* Encouraging our customers to plant trees too

Indirect planting 

* Working with suppliers and manufacturers that reforest as part of their sustainability strategy. You can read more about our supply chain below.

PROGRESS: 

As of March 2023,we're delighted to announce the tree-mendous news that, a few months earlier than planned, we've smashed this goal and planted 62,738 trees to be precise!

Whilst we're on a roll, we've now set ourselves a new target of 75,000 trees to be planted by the end of December 2023. Watch this space.

November 2023 came the unbe-LEAF-able news that we'd almost doubled our tree planting goal. With 3 new trees planted for every 1 used for our packaging,  Project TREE60 has not just sprouted with 75,000 but it's grown into a fully fledged forest of 110,000 TREES.

This has proven that, when it comes to making the world a better place, we're a forest to be reckoned with 💪

 

   in partnership with  

As a key part of PROJECT TREE60, we’re pleased to begin a new partnership with TreeSisters.

TreeSisters offers unique global programs that focus on encouraging women's leadership, nature-connection, and significant behaviour change. TreeSisters funds the restoration of environments, biodiversity and communities within more than 10 major ecosystems around the global Tropics, through a diverse portfolio of vetted, trusted reforestation projects and in the process, plants millions of trees - in fact, nearly 20M to date.

Tropical forests are more than 'the lungs' of our world - they are the beating heart of the hydrological cycle. As weather stabilisers, rain creators and cleansers, they are implicitly tied to our health and our food. They are ecological healers, crucial for biodiversity and major carbon sinks that absorb excess atmospheric carbon that otherwise acidifies our oceans. We cannot live without them and we are losing them at staggering rates.

Through our donations, we are helping TreeSisters fund projects that focus on empowering women to plant trees in order to provide food and income to support them and the communities within which they live.

 

SUPPLY CHAIN

We know our supply chain has an integral role to play in the sustainability of Oppo Brothers. In line with our five key focus areas, we are working to continually improve our footprint and how we bring Oppo Brothers ice cream to the shelves.

WE ARE COMMITTED TO SUSTAINABLY-SOURCED, RECYCLABLE PACKAGING.

  • Our tubs and lids are certified by and subject to the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or the Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC).
  • Our packaging is made in plants that operate efficiently, achieving ambitious energy, waste, emission and water targets thanks to state-of-the-art technology and processes.
  • All our paper-based packaging is recyclable and supports the circular economy EU recyclability targets.
  • Since 2014, in partnership with our packaging supplier, at least 3 new trees have been planted for each 1 used in the process of making our ice cream packaging.
  • Since 2020, our packaging has been 100% foil-free.

WE SUPPORT RESPONSIBLE MILK PRODUCTION. 

  • Our milk is produced by meadow-grazed cows local to our creamery.  The cows graze in meadows for the majority of the year (weather permitting) which we believe makes for better quality milk and better tasting ice cream. 
  • The small dairy farm we work with employs circular farming methods meaning that waste from the cows is sequestered back into the farmland and nearby forests as natural fertiliser.
  • We ethically source our Colombian fina de aroma cocoa from cocoa cooperatives where profits are re-invested back into the farming communities to educate on sustainable farming methods.
  • We are also actively growing our non-dairy business to provide plant-based alternatives with a lower carbon impact.

 WE RESPECT THE WELFARE OF OUR PEOPLE.  

  • At our head office, a flexible working culture means putting our team’s wellbeing at its heart so that we’re all happy, healthy and ready to make the world’s best ice cream.

WE AIM TO CONTINUALLY REDUCE OUR WATER & ENERGY CONSUMPTION.

  • Our lower sugar ice cream is not just better for you but it also is less impactful on the environment than regular ice cream, as sugar production is highly water intensive.
  • Our dairy farms have significantly reduced water consumption vs other dairy operations, and are exploring ground-breaking trials to develop drinking water from the milk production process.
  • Energy efficient production sites meet the highest standards and energy consumption been reduced by 17% over the last ten years thanks to investment in more energy-efficient machinery and working practices.
  • Our Head Office is one of the top buildings for energy efficiency in London. Located in The Food Exchange, it is an exciting new low energy building for food entrepreneurs.  

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, WE MINIMISE FOOD WASTE.

  • We never throw perfectly good ice cream away when it can’t be sold in the shops any more - we always give ice cream away that’s still within its shelf life to brighten someone's day.
  • From homeless charities to food banks to the elderly, we like to spread the feel good whenever we can. Please get in touch if you work for a charity that would be interested in receiving donations (and has the freezer space to accommodate!).

We like to think that our approach to sustainability benefits not only our customers but also our team and the broader world in many different ways.  Combining all of this, we achieved B-Corp Certification in 2022. This means that we meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. 
If there’s something else you think we should consider or would like to find out more about please let us know at team@oppobrothers.co.uk.