In order to transform how we connect to the world we’re committed to looking at every part of our business. Everyday we ask ourselves… Is this the best that we can do? This is the question that drives our company. For the environment. To ask less of the planet. We don’t just ask more of ourselves, we also need to re-imagine what’s possible.
Explore. Create. Protect & Inspire.
Mayhawk’s Leadership & Governance Strategy | THE ENVIRONMENT
We maintain a policy of creative control through all of our chocolate making processes, and we rarely outsource, including designing and making the vast majority of all the packaging materials we use ourselves, printing it in-house. This is why as a company we want to re-imagine what’s possible, whilst minimizing our impact on the world’s resources.
At Mayhawk we have transitioned from a traditional, finite-linear business model, to an eco-circular business model, creating products with closed-loop processes, designed with better raw-materials & ingredients, made with fewer resources, and fully recyclable packaging.
Working smarter. To lighten our environmental impact we look at each stage of our production, planing it to be as energy efficient as possible, through improving areas in manufacturing, packaging, our usage of renewable energies, our buildings, transportation, and importantly encouraging our customers to recycle. We believe sustainability and business growth are complementary.
Promoting change. A sustainable growth company is a low-carbon growth company. At Mayhawk we support tree planting initiatives and programs that drive positive change. Planting new trees in the forest around where we work helps us offset our carbon footprint in the transport and logistics supply chain that we use; and by setting goals to help protect or plant enough sustainably managed trees in other fragile regions we can also encourage better agroforestry techniques.
Setting High-standards. We use only 100% recycled & responsibly sourced paper & card in our packaging.
Our Main Environmental Goal. Zero Waste to Landfill.
In our product packaging we use recycled paper and card and we have always sourced the virgin paper we use responsibly – sourcing only from protected sustainable forests. Most of the aluminum foil we use is from recycled sources and this in itself can be recycled once more, moving us closer to a closed-loop supply chain, where less materials need to be mined from the earth.
We’re constantly looking for ways to make our signature packaging smaller, beautiful, but smaller, and using recycled paper & card whenever we can. Even right at the beginnings of our company we turned our backs on outsourced, overly-elaborate, and harmfully made plastic and plastic-coated packaging – we designed our own packaging (making it in-house) to use fewer plastics, if any at all. And we are now replacing the small amount of plastic we use with new clear biodegradable materials made from sugarcane.
In our packaging, everything can be easily and locally recycled, with Zero waste to landfill. Please Recycle Responsibly.
Where we are and how far we have got to go
FOCUS AREAS & ACTION PLAN
Sustainable Sourcing and Traceability of Raw-materials is a key issue for us to focus on.
OUR MAIN ACTION POINTS
- To continue to use paper in our packaging from either recycled wood fiber or sustainably managed forests and controlled wood sources (FSC).
- Education. Few people fully understand the global nature and manufacturing processes of making chocolate. Continue our partnerships with local schools to bring awareness of what we do to the classroom.
- Advancing the use of Renewable Energy & Energy Savings across our production sites.
- Monitor Distribution and Transportation Optimization – in co-operation with our delivery partners.
- Continue to reduce the production of organic waste, and to convert 100% of it into fertilizer.
- Reduce the amount of paper materials and water used in our production site.
- Eliminate landfill-waste. Reduce the amount of raw-materials purchased with non-recyclable materials as packaging.
- Drive positive change in helping to protect sustainable forests and by initiating tree planting programs. Both at home and abroad.
- Ongoing R&D of innovative, environmentally-friendly, recyclable materials in our packaging.
- Developing partnerships and initiatives with global charitable organisations.
- Traceability. An ongoing assessment of suppliers in three main categories: labor and human rights, environmental responsibility, and health and safety.
- Monitor and evaluate our environmental policies each year as the company grows.
Recycling Our Natural Bio-Organic Waste
100% of all our natural bio-organic waste is recycled as compost.
As ‘Bean-to-Bar’ chocolate makers we produce a natural bio-organic waste material in our chocolate production. The largest of which is the waste cacao-bean shell, the dried husk on the outside of the bean, (around 10% to 17% of each bean is an unused natural bio-organic waste material not used in chocolate). We recycle 100% of this as compost (which is a great natural fertilizer) and use it in our greenhouses, where we grow many of our own ingredients like chillis and herbs etc. that go into our chocolate.
Trees & Forests
Forests can be renewable sources of raw materials, if managed correctly, and we challenge ourselves to ask what we can do about them in every part of our business.
We’re committed to protecting and creating more sustainable forests than we’re using.
Out of all the natural resources on this planet Mayhawk is most intimately connected to those of trees and forests. It’s where most of our raw materials come from, either in chocolate production, from cacao trees grown in the rainforest regions, or the paper and card, from European FSC forests, used in our signature packaging. To that end… we are committed to protecting and creating more sustainable forests than we’re using.
It is the duty of all of us to help protect the natural ecosystems throughout the planet, so for our part we hold ourselves accountable for all the resources we use. We work hard to minimize our impact on forests by sourcing our raw materials responsibly and by using them as efficiently as possible. We also want to work with cacao growers who continue to protect and create sustainable working forests, because when properly managed they can provide abundant cacao resources for a long time.
Our small company is situated in the Forest of Dean. This ancient woodland surrounds us, and to those that live here these forests have always been considered a precious resource. Globally trees provide the wood-fiber for the paper and card we use in our packaging. They also clean our air, purify our water and shelter wildlife. So each year we plant several native deciduous trees in the forest around our facility, to offset our company’s carbon footprint.
Sustainable Agroforestry Techniques are essential for the future of the industry.
Cacao-Tree Seedlings ready to be planted out, creating a sustainable closed cycle.
‘Closed-Loop’ Packaging at Mayhawk
Most of the basic Materials for the generic packaging you see in the chocolate industry are mined from the earth and then chemically altered and manufactured in a harmful and polluting way. Within moments of opening the product this packaging very often ends up in landfills after use, as most of the wasteful plastics and coated papers cannot be easily or locally recycled. Then the process starts over and more materials are extracted from the earth for new products.
Catalyst For Change. We make and design our own signature packaging with these environmental thoughts in mind. At Mayhawk we believe our ultimate goal should be a closed-loop supply chain, where all our products and packaging materials are made using only renewable and sustainable resources or recycled materials. We’re very close to getting there, and we hope that in the near future we can say that we have achieved this, throughout our company, and for all of our products.
Renewable Energy & Mayhawk
A significant and growing proportion of the electricity we use to power our buildings and machines come from the solar panels we recently installed on our roofs and from the local wind turbines that are a growing part of the local economy. We would like to extend this initiative into clean energy in the near future to cover 100% of what we use, ensuring that all of our energy comes from renewable sources like solar, hydro, and wind power. So that every time you enjoy our chocolate, or send a gift, it will have been made by renewable energy.
