Sustainability
“Sustainability is embedded in the fabric of the company”
With 20 green initiatives and counting listed on its website, Golden Bear Toys is leading the field when it comes to environmental best practices. MD Barry Hughes explains why “Play today, protect tomorrow” has become the company’s watchword
T
he team at Shropshire-based Golden Bear Toys, “Experts in Play” since 1979, have made a raft of changes
to their working practices and premises in order to reduce their impact on the planet. At a time when plenty of firms are “greenwashing” their products or making minimal eco-friendly efforts, Golden Bear is clearly going the extra mile to ensure that sustainability is at the heart of everything it does,
whether it’s installing electric charging points in the staff car park or achieving ISO 14001 environmental standard certification. For MD Barry
Hughes, steering the Golden Bear Toys ship
towards greener shores is personal as much as political. “Everyone gets job satisfaction
from making a difference, it’s certainly where I get most of mine,” he states. “So, that was one element behind our shift towards sustainability. Then, as we expanded and the team grew, it became increasingly clear that it was important to our staff, to our retailers, to parents. It’s also becoming more important to kids,
26 | ToyNews | Spring/Summer 2022
and they’re increasingly having a lot more say in purchase decisions.” Overseen by a sustainability team headed
up by Commercial Manager Gareth Lloyd, Golden Bear’s green initiatives are many and varied. Packaging, for example, has been overhauled, and will all be FSC certified by autumn/winter 2023. Plastic ties have been replaced with cardboard equivalents, and product packaging printing is now done using soy inks – making the paper and card easier to recycle. The company’s Hong Kong and UK offices are certified carbon- neutral, while the Golden Bear Toys HQ in Telford operates as a zero-to-landfill site, uses low-energy LED lighting and derives all its electricity from solar panels during the sunnier months of the year. “All the stuffing in our soft toys has
been made from recycled PET bottles for years, but we haven’t really shouted about it,” explains Barry. “Now we’re starting to make sure all our fabric is recycled. We’ve done that across our whole Hey Duggee, Mr Tumble, and The Baby Club ranges, but there’s one product where it’s more difficult to get it right, as the outside needs to be pretty elastic. We haven’t been able to get it 100 per cent recycled yet, so we clearly label it as 95 per cent recycled. It’s vitally important that we’re honest with our customers and our retailers.” Finding a solution to the industry’s “plastic problem” is one that Golden Bear Toys, and many other companies, are struggling with. “We are actively seeking a long-term solution and are determined to
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