The Responsible Business Directory
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The Responsible Business Directory
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Unit 562 Salisbury House
31 London Wall
London
Greater London
EC2M 5QQ
At OAK Garden, we strive to grow the curiosity for a sustainable world in schools, through helping teachers, staff and pupils understand what actions they can take to do their part in saving our planet, starting with energy. Support by our sister company OAK Network, energy sensors are installed, giving schools access to their data, with reports and recommendations to eradicate energy waste. On top of this, we provide sustainability education and projects through our partnerships.
At OAK Garden, we strive to grow the curiosity for a sustainable world in schools, through helping teachers, staff and pupils understand what actions they can take to do their part in saving our planet, starting with energy. Along the way, we ensure we are doing our best to run an eco-minded organisation.
Schools are provided with online energy reports, identifying energy wastage and retrofits, with insights and recommendations to reduce energy consumption. Alongside this, schools are given sustainability teaching resources, projects, and programmes. These are offered primarily online, however some projects require physical products.
Where possible, we source these products through environmentally and socially responsible suppliers. In most cases, we buy from suppliers in the UK, however in the rare circumstances we buy from overseas, we endeavour to reduce shipping distances as much as possible. Our most loved product is our OAK Garden box, which provides projects and lesson plans on a termly basis. To teach pupils about the value of reusing, we provide a pre-paid postage sticker to send back our boxes, for reuse in the next term.
Naturally, our boxes require printed products, which are always printed on FSC certified paper. We source environmentally friendly ink, usually soy, meaning we can provide resources that enable our schools to reuse paper products to create origami plant pots for growing wildflower seeds. Being tech savvy means that all other paperwork is done electronically, with handwritten notes on recycled paper.
In terms of how we work, we do not have a physical office, meaning most of our employees work remotely. Meetings are mostly carried out online to prevent wasteful travel. With emails being an oft-forgotten source of CO2 emissions, emails are routinely deleted, and hyperlinks are sent instead of large attachments. When visiting schools for site surveys, we travel via car share, public transport or by bike. Any food purchased for lunch or snacks is organic, in season and from local small businesses, buying only what is needed to prevent food waste. Food is mostly vegan or vegetarian, and scraps are composted.
Most homes of our employees are powered by renewable energy sources, one even has an air source heat pump. As a non-profit focussed on energy efficiency, our internal aim is to have all homes of our employees powered by renewable energy sources. We use all of the knowledge gained through working with our schools to optimise our own energy use in our homes.
Improving the local community is at the heart of our company, with big aims for the long-term future in connecting our schools with nature through rewilding projects, in both rural and urban environments. We are a long way away from achieving this, but it is another way we want to help pupils and their teachers understand the actions they can take to save our planet.
At the end of the day, the people and partnerships are what makes this all possible. Our partnerships with educational organisations all have a common aim in helping with sustainability education in schools. Our sister company, The OAK Network, are committed to changing the way businesses manage their energy, whilst improving local communities through carbon offsetting with The Pond Foundation. Aligning with the brand philosophy means we are all deeply passionate about the solutions to climate change, and naturally, what comes with that is team members that are extremely focused on being carbon active. Without them, this business would not be possible.