IPN the first major UK pet food manufacturer to become carbon negative

IPN has been accredited by Carbon Footprint Ltd as achieving carbon negative status and has now launched its A Positive Pawprint project – a bold ambition to become the most sustainable pet food manufacturer in the country and focusses on People, Pets and the Planet.

The family-run business has set out a raft of goals, from moving to 100% recyclable dog food packaging in early 2021 to providing 1m meals for pets in shelters and planting a tree for every employee.

CEO Richard Page said: “Lots of companies are now promising to address climate change in the coming years, which is good to see – but we didn’t want to set a distant future pledge for something that could be done today. Sustainability isn’t new to us, it’s part of our DNA as we’ve always tried to make the right choices for people, pets and the planet and led the way when we launched Harringtons into compostable bags back in 2009.  Becoming carbon negative is the next big step towards our goal of being the UK’s most sustainable pet food manufacturer.”

To reach carbon negative status, IPN worked with Carbon Footprint to calculate its production emissions to then invest in over this amount in projects like tree planting in the UK and wind farms and solar power overseas which will remove more carbon from the atmosphere.  Going that bit further, IPN will cover the personal footprint as well as plant a tree for its near 300 employees.

It’s the latest piece of sustainability work from IPN, which in 2017 became the first UK pet manufacturer to be awarded green level accreditation by Investors in the Environment – the organisation’s highest achievable level.

The company has also reduced its own carbon emissions by 10% year-on-year (2017-19) as well as developing packaging innovations such as SIOC (Ship In Own Container) whereby bags of product no longer need an outer container so significantly reducing the packaging required for online deliveries.

The Positive Pawprint initiative sets out a host of environmental goals for IPN.  These include ensuring that any plastic packaging used is made up of at least 30% recycled material, extending the initiative throughout its supply chain and increasing annually the proportion of energy used from renewable sources.

The project will also focus on other social responsibility goals, like supporting pet and pet parent wellbeing – starting with a new campaign which promotes taking exercise to help feed animals in need.  Called Miles and Meals, the campaign urges pet parents to walk, run or cycle as many miles as they can.  IPN will then select from a network of nearly 100 animal charities and pet shelters it works with and donate a meal for every mile walked.

Corporate marketing executive Hannah Page, who is closely involved with Positive Pawprint, said: “We’ve all spent a lot of time indoors in 2020 and it’s clear that taking exercise with your pet really helps improve physical and mental wellbeing.  So we wanted to give people an extra reason to get out and about, in the knowledge that each mile will fund a meal for a pet that needs support.”