Sustainability

We’re measuring more than just our financial performance…..

Hooked On Granite Ltd is an independent British business with a long history of providing the best equipment and advice to hillwalkers, rock climbers, mountaineers and expeditions to the greater ranges. We strive to be a ‘good’ business by considering the impact of our activities on people (social impact) and the planet (environmental impact), not just on profit. Our business was founded in 2005 but as custodians of two of the most established outdoor retail brands in the UK, we continue a combined 115 year path paved by some of the greatest climbers in the world.

We are in business to help people discover and enjoy the outdoor environment and we fully recognise the connection between encouraging people to get outside more and the impact tourism has on the environment. We do our best to be a ‘good’ business, focusing on minimising our environmental impact and striving to improve every year. We’re also proud to support three National Park charities: The Snowdonia Society and The Lake District Foundation and Fix The Fells whose tireless work helps to protect our stunning natural environment for generations to come. In addition, we support a number of charities committed to promote the advancement of health or saving of lives and to aid the prevention or relief of poverty, improving the life chances of children, young people and families by inspiring them to engage positively in their communities and helping mountain people to help themselves raise their standard of living and strengthen indigenous, community-based culture. We do this via The El Rio Trust (formally the Frank Davies Trust), The Brathay Trust and Community Action Nepal.

You can read our 2019 report on Giving Back here

As of September 2020, we started an annual process to assess the full environmental impact of our business. We’ve always aimed to be an environmentally responsible business, but that doesn’t count for much if we’re not actually measuring our environmental impact. This year, we began the process to become truly environmentally responsible by completing our first environmental impact assessment and putting into place our first Environmental Policy shown below.

As a result we are very proud to have attained Green Small Business Certification.

Environmental Impact:

As part of this process we can now confirm that we have switched (where current contracts allow) to sustainable energy providers.

Any new lighting in our shops is energy saving LED.

All new carrier bags purchased in 2020 were paper.

Our warehouse has switched to using new paper based packaging where plastics e.g: bubble wrap that are already in the system cannot be re-used.

84% of our waste was re-cycled this year.

Our positive impact on energy consumption included:

Introducing the Bike To Work Scheme

A raft of sustainable Covid security measures implemented including bulk sanitiser, hand-made washable fabric facemasks and in house printed signage

Our continued commitment to offer brown paper bags instead of bio-degradable plastic bags at checkout

Continued commitment to only stock re-chargeable batteries where available.

Social Impact:

We have been delighted that through our longstanding charitable commitments we have still been able to have a positive social impact even during a very difficult year:

We raised monies for The Lake District Foundation via Subscription, Branded Nalgene Bottles & Ali’s Maps and for The Snowdonia Society via Subscription & Branded Nalgene Bottles.

We also continued to pay a substantial amount to Community Action Nepal via Rental payments for our Ambleside shop & the selling of Doug Scott signed photographic prints and Nepali artifacts.

Monies were also raised for The Brathay Trust via continued support of the Ambleside Trail 60 along with a donation of 40 pairs of walking boots to The Brathay Trust for use at their outdoor residential centre just outside Ambleside.

Looking forward to 2021 we are delighted to be working closely with our key Supplier Rab who announced they will become a Net Carbon Zero Company by 2030 and we are encouraging customers to maintain and service their waterproofs by offering free care leaflets and proofing sachets with every new waterproof garment we sell.

This is just the beginning!