Planet
OUR COMMITMENT
We are committed to mitigating our environmental impacts in our operations and along supply chains to help protect our planet. We remain focused on the pressing issue of reduction our carbon emissions while increasing our understanding of how to preserve nature and conserve water.
PLANET
PATHWAY TO ZERO
Our goal is to reduce absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% by 2030 against a FY19 base.
Environmental policy
Scope 1 carbon emissions basis of reporting
PLANET
TCFD
In FY23, we published our first full TCFD report, building on the voluntary report in FY22.
Carbon Reduction
We have set science-based targets to reduce our impact on the planet, which have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative. Our overarching target is to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) across the value chain by FY2040 from a FY2019 base year.
We have also set near-term targets to reduce absolute scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions by 50% by FY2030 from a FY2019 base year.
For a full list of our science-based targets please visit Metrics and Targets
STORES AND SITES
Focusing on being efficient in the stores and sites that we operate to save resources and cost.
Across our store estate and sites, we have set decarbonisation plans and annualised internal targets to help us achieve our 2040 net-zero target.
Within our stores, the largest source of emissions is from gas heating, oil and refrigerant gases. That’s why we continue to replace our gas-fired heating with electric heating run on purchased renewable energy. We are reducing emissions from refrigeration gases by replacing them with gases with a lower global warming potential.
In 2022 we completely removed oil from our operations.
TRANSPORT AND DISTRIBUTION
We look for carbon reduction and efficiency opportunities across all our logistics operations, whether run by Dunelm or our providers.
Transport contributed to over 50% of our own operations baseline and so was the area with the largest opportunity to decarbonise.
We operate a Home Delivery Network (HDN), fitter vans and company car fleets. Within our HDN fleet, around 40% of the emissions came from 44-tonne diesel HGV trunking vehicles. In July 2023, we removed the diesel HGV’s and introduced nine new tractor units fuelled on bio-compressed natural gas (BIO-CNG). BIO-CNG carbon emissions are 85% less than fossil fuel diesel trucks.
Our company car fleet options have been electric or hybrid only and we plan to phase out all other cars by FY25.
PRODUCT CIRCULARITY
Moving from a linear to a circular model for product design, raw material sourcing, manufacturing, product use, longevity and next-life
Improving Product Design
Embedded within circularity is the need to create solutions that consider all environmental, economic and social aspects. As a result, we must apply the principles of a circular economy when (re)designing and developing our products, to help address global challenges such as global warming, biodiversity loss, waste and pollution.
To improve the design of our products we will consider their full life cycle and create opportunities for long-term value creation. Our aim is to create products that eliminate waste and pollution; that can be kept in use, and at their highest value for as long as possible; and which can help to regenerate nature.
Sourcing Lower-impact Raw Materials
Our latest modelling indicated that raw materials used in our products account for a significant proportion of our carbon footprint. We focus our efforts across both our textiles (towels, bedding, clothing) and non-textiles ‘hardlines’ (products such as furniture and appliances categories).
Reducing Impacts during Manufacturing
A significant proportion of our carbon emissions come from the manufacturing of our products. Through our Better Manufacturing programme, we are engaging our suppliers and encouraging our suppliers to develop their expertise and drive continuous improvement in their own supply chains, starting with measuring their impacts and switching to renewable energy at manufacturing sites.
Prolonging Product Life
We share tips and life hacks for our customers on how they can repair our products and care instructions to extend the life of textile products. We have expanded our paints and craft ranges and our choice of handles, knobs and knockers to encourage upcycling.
Developing End-of-life solutions
We currently have take-back solutions for around 61% of our product categories by sales value (excluding trials) and constantly seek to expanded these services to other product areas. Our textile take-back service is popular with our customers and we collect an average of c.70 tonnes of textiles a month. Of the total textiles donated by our customers, around 70% is reused, and 30% is recycled. Textiles that are ready to be recycled are combined with other post-consumer sources and repurposed into new items as part of our Conscious Choice Remade collection. These products are made from at least 40% pre-loved materials.
Nature
By volume, our two most nature-intensive raw materials are cotton and timber. For both we have mapped likely sourcing locations, analysed our nature-related impacts and dependencies and made a baseline assessment of the ‘state of nature’. We are using this preliminary work to assess the sourcing regions we should be targeting to preserve and protect longer-term business dependencies.
We are members of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) forum (working group) and have been working with them to trial draft versions of the TNFD framework.
Water
Dunelm have committed to reduce the aggregate water footprint of new products by 30% against a 2019 baseline, aligning ourselves to the Textiles 2030 industry target, of which we are partners.
To improve our understanding of our environmental impacts beyond carbon, we have analysed water consumption in our own facilities and supply chains. Using lifecycle analysis software, Textiles 2030’s footprinting tool and data from our facilities, we created our first total water consumption footprint for 2022. We will be progressing work on water reduction in our supply chain through the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) data collection and our Better Manufacturing programme.