Newsletter | December 2022

Welcome to our first newsletter!

We’re really excited to share with you some exciting developments at Acopia.

Helping you achieve more is always our top priority whether its around the products you use, process improvement or plastic reduction.

To make sure you don’t miss anything – this is a quick round up of some of our latest product innovations, market news and a look ahead to what’s in store for 2023.

We’ve also been focussed on our own Sustainability journey and achieved two important certifications this year. Read all about this in The Story So Far. And make sure to look out for news from us once a quarter next year!

Kind regards,

Russell Lynes, Managing Director

Strong Supply Chain

Most would agree it has been a challenging year with so many external factors impacting the market and supply. We have all had to deal with transport and logistics disruptions and manufacturing delays – and the impact this has had on costs.

Acopia have focussed hard on building resilience into our supply chain as part of our whole Resilience Strategy to enable us to bring you the products you need when you need them.

It is yet unclear how long we can all expect these pressures on supply chains to continue but to mitigate its consequences as much as we can, we have invested in technology, new initiatives and processes as well as our own exciting product developments to keep external impact to a minimum.

As always we’re absolutely determined to offer you value and service to keeping you operational and we are working with supply partners to help us meet these challenges. And we’re not taking our eye off the ball when it comes to delivering sustainably to you and continue to ensure we support greener logistics with shared distribution networks wherever possible.

Maintaining a ‘safety stock’ inventory is extremely worthwhile (which we can hold for you free of charge) and if you’re shipping at scale, operationally there is a huge amount you can do as a business to drive better outcomes and improve efficiencies

Look out for further supply chain updates from us next year.

Download our Pallet Wrap Best Practice eGuide for detailed information on how to achieve this with a simple product swap.

Download Pallet Wrap Best Practice eGuide

What’s new?

Acopia is FSC Chain of Custody Certified

Procure with complete confidence knowing that every step in the supply chain is guaranteed on every FSC product you buy from us. This is just one important part of our whole Corporate Social Responsibilty programme aimed at reducing impact, maintaining vulnerable habitats and reducing the resources we consume.

What is FSC exactly? Find out everything you need to know about the FSC certification in our blog

High Performance Hand Wrap joins the iWrap family

Adding to our existing 400 and 500 series of high performance machine pallet wrap, the 300 series of hand wrap is now available. With 30% recycled content – it’s the smart choice to eliminating Plastic Packaging Tax costs as well as being more environmentally friendly. At just 5 micron, you’ll be using less of it too.

If you would like to try this for yourself – you can sign up for a free roll here

In focus

Each quarter we will be taking a closer look sustainable initiatives that can be easily implemented. This quarter, we consider how you can start to introduce more eco-friendly packaging to your operation.

How Can I make My Packaging More Eco-friendly?

Now more than ever, corporations and communities are realising the threat that climate change poses. While undoing the damage that has already been caused is impossible, we can prevent further damage to the environment. Acopia are dedicated to finding your business a solution to whatever eco-friendly manufacturing and packaging your business needs. The fact of the matter is that changes have to be made if the situation is to improve.

Companies must exercise corporate social responsibility by ditching the past and moving forward with renewables to promote a more ethically conscious business climate. A significant step towards accomplishing this is making the shift to eco-friendly packaging materials.

Find out more about eco-friendly packaging

Sustainability and how the products you use can make a difference

The products you use day to day can have a big impact on the plastic waste you produce as well as your carbon footprint. Making small changes can have a lasting and beneficial impact – you don’t have to everything at once – you just need to start.

Ethical cleaning

We have partnered with Miniml who produce a range of ethical cleaning products from plant based ingredients supported through a closed loop system. This means our customers can reduce their carbon footprint as well as reducing their plastic use.

Miniml have removed over 200 million tonnes of plastic from the supply chain. You can find out more about the range of cleaning products, how the closed loop system works and how using Miniml can save you money too.

Find out about Miniml and more carbon footprint, plastic and money saving products here in a our new Sustainability eGuide

How much plastic is your company using?

To find out where you are on your own Sustainability journey – why not take our 10 minute benchmark test to find out?

You’ll receive a detailed report which is completely customised with unique insights into your business. Along with an overall score, you’ll be able to see at a glance the areas where your business is achieving good progress and areas you may need support.

Take the test here – We’re ready to work with you to improve your score!

Pallet Wrap Plastic Savings

We have taken a look back at the clients we are working with this year using iWrap our high performance machine wrap to understand the importance of using more environmentally friendly products.

We have calculated that we have prevented 224,287 kilograms of plastic entering waste streams and landfill.

Why is this important? Each tonne of plastic reduction creates 6 tonnes of C02 during its lifecycle.

As a country – we use over 150,000 tons of pallet wrap a year 2.5 tons would fill just 1 double decker bus. We all need to do more to reduce our plastic use and plastic waste together.

You can find out more about how high performance pallet wrap reduces the amount of plastic you need here.

Our sustainable journey

– the story so far

We all know it’s so important to be taking steps to minimise our environmental impact.

We take this seriously at Acopia and we are proud to let you know that we have achieved Carbon Neutral Status as verified by Carbon Neutral Britain. We continue to monitor our use of resources and reduce and reuse wherever possible.

What our Carbon Neutrality means for you…

Working with suppliers who are carbon neutral helps your business on your own sustainability journey. Most of your carbon footprint lies in your supply chains from materials to emissions from transporting goods. If your goal is also to be carbon neutral – working with suppliers that help to reduce your footprint will be at the heart of your approach.

Working with a single source supplier will support you to get on track by eliminating wasted mile journeys and if you’re a multi-branch organisation, direct to location deliveries will streamline your distribution.

Carbon Neutral Purchasing

Through our partnership with Carbon Neutral, we are really delighted to let you know that we can completely off set your purchases with us from pallet wrap to paper bags – and everything in between!
You’ll receive an official certification and more importantly – your organisation will have done its bit in helping to reverse climate impact. Talk to your Account Manager for more details on this.
Find out more about the work we are doing by viewing our Social Impact page

Taking a closer look at products with 30%+ plastic content.

Purchasing products that contain 30% or more recycled content will not only help you to reduce your costs, it helps the environment too.

The introduction of the Plastic Packaging Tax in April was aimed at reducing the manufacture and use of virgin plastic in packaging. Any plastic packaging without the specified 30% recycled content is subject to a levy – a green tax.

Our ongoing policy is to support plastic waste reduction and minimise your exposure to the tax by:

Identifying all products where >30% recycled content can be added without significantly affecting performance
Working with major users of such products, to ensure that they can accept the new specification
Where recycled content cannot be specified due to performance or compliance issues, to assess opportunities to downgauge (thus reducing plastic use and tax liability) or replace with new non-plastic products

We have now introduced over xx products (and the list continues to grow) that meet the requirements of this legislation which means you won’t have to pay any tax associated costs as well as reducing your overall plastic use.

You can find out more about these products here

A thank you from the Acopia Team

We wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued loyalty and hope you feel appreciated – because you are.

We have lots in store for 2023 and we’re really looking forward to working with you next year. If you need any further help or advice on any of the topics mentioned in the newsletter – do ask your Account Manager.

And finally, you can find a reminder of our delivery schedule and office hours over the holiday here.

The whole team at Acopia wish you a happy and restful Christmas.