Our Circularity Design Principles are a set of guidelines that help our commercial teams create ‘circular products’. Some of the principles include: Renewable and Recycled Materials, Durability and Product Disassembly.
Our home the Planet, provides the resources we use to create our products and we are committed to mitigating our environmental impacts in our operations and along supply chains.
To reach our goal of being net zero by 2040, we focus on being efficient in the stores and sites that we operate, work with our logistics providers to trial new fuels and electric options, and are moving from a linear to a circular mindset along the product lifecycle.
Stores and sites
Focusing on being efficient in the stores and sites that we operate to save resources and cost.
- Engaging colleagues to promote energy efficiency behaviours
- Replacing gas-fired heating and refrigerants with lower carbon alternatives
- Installing photovoltaic panels across store estate and sites
- Trialing lower-impact transit packaging
- Improving product packaging and e-commerce packaging to reduce damages and returns
- Introducing drop testing at our DCs to further improve packaging durability
- Advocate for electricity grid decarbonisation via the Aldersgate Group and British Retail Consortium
Transport and distribution
Working with logistics providers to trial new fuels and electric options where infrastructure allows.
- Electric-/hybrid-only company car options
- Ongoing driver training to improve efficiency
- E-commerce delivery efficiency programme
- Expand our use of bio-compressed natural gas (BIO-CNG) in home delivery (HDN) fleet
- Trialing first-to-market electric vehicles with logistics partners
Work closely with our third-party delivery partners to support and accelerate the transition to lower-emission delivery solutions.
Product circularity
Moving from a linear to a circular mindset for product design, raw material sourcing, use-in-home, longevity and disposal.
Transitioning to use lower-impact raw materials in our products
Using Cascale's Higg Index set of tools to engage suppliers and monitor performance
Prolonging product life by providing care and cleaning tips and enabling customers to pass on products when they reach the end-of-life
- Designing products ready for a circular economy
- Extend take-back services to cover more product categories
- Using recycled fibre from take-back services in our products
- Implement services that further develop circular behaviours such as repair
Through the UK Textiles PACT, run by WRAP, we are collaborating on textile longevity innovation
Members of The Better Cotton Initiative
Candidate member of Cascale (previously Sustainable Apparel Coalition)
How Dunelm’s circularity strategy interacts with our products along its lifecycle
Our latest modelling indicates that raw materials used in our products account for a significant proportion of our carbon footprint. Sourcing in accordance with our ‘More Responsibly Sourced’ policies and increasing the percentage of materials like recycled cotton and recycled polyester in our products, reduces the energy and water used to grow, extract or cultivate virgin raw materials used in our products.
A significant proportion of our carbon emissions come from the manufacturing of our products. Our Better Manufacturing programme supports our suppliers to reduce carbon and water impacts associated with the manufacturing of our products. Using tools such as the Higg Index, our Tier 1 suppliers are disclosing environmental impact data across energy, water, chemicals and waste.
Across our Home Delivery Network we are transitioning to lowercarbon fuels such as BIO-CNG, which have 85% less emissions than fossil fuel diesel. We also aim to use sea freight rather than air freight to limit our carbon footprint.
By extending the life of our products we can reduce resource consumption and waste generation. We provide extended product guarantees on our products and provide customers with instructions via our website on how they can care and clean for their products.
Keeping products and materials in use for as long as possible is central to the transition to a circular economy. We promote reuse and credible recycling and takeback services. We offer customer takeback services for 60% of our range and will continue to explore potential additional services.
While we want to avoid any products from reaching their end-of-life, they are sometimes not suitable for reuse and in some cases are not recyclable either because of their materials and the current infrastructure or because of their condition and quality.
Planet metrics
Metric | Outcome |
Scope 1 — Reduce absolute carbon emissions by 50% against an FY19 baseline by FY30 | -31% |
Scope 2 — Purchase 100% renewable electricity every year | 100% |
Scope 3 — Reduce absolute carbon emissions in our target boundary by 50% against an FY19 baseline by FY30 | 32% |
Maximise packaging recyclability & mitigate pEPR Costs1 | 78% |
90% of own-brand polyester to be recycled by FY30 | 64% |
100% of own-brand cotton to be More Responsibly Sourced by FY30 | 78% |
Year-on-year improvement in the % of our own-brand timber with full FSC Chain of Custody | 60% |
Maintain high levels of response rate (85%+) from key Tier 1 suppliers for Higg FEM | 88% |
¹ Percentage of overall household packaging which is rated as ‘Green’ under the Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility — Recyclability Assessment Methodology |
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