At Hippie Snacks, sustainability is at the core of all our decisions; we choose to do the right thing, not just the trendy thing. Sustainability is a never ending process of improvement, not an end goal.
We’re committed to keeping our planet green and have always been concerned about the environment. We manage our impact on the planet by making changes to how we do business and by operating as efficiently as possible. We’re constantly looking for ways to reduce our environmental footprint and have made steps in the right direction, but understand we can and need to do more.
Environmental Footprint Assessment
We feel if you want to decrease your environmental footprint, you must first assess where your biggest impacts exist. Rather than making assumptions about which areas of our business have the largest environmental impact, we hired two independent environmental specialists to conduct a company-wide environmental analysis. Instead of limiting ourselves to assessing our greenhouse gas emissions, we dug deep to look into other environmental factors such as water usage, soil retention, soil health, habitat safety and air quality. We not only looked inside our company, but also analyzed the entire supply chain: from the seed at the farm, to the store where you buy your groceries. We learned that 80% of our environmental footprint was concentrated in two areas:
1) how the food we sell is grown, and
2 )how it is transported. Learn more about what we did with the findings.
Energy Reduction & Sustainable Transportation
We’re constantly working to reduce our energy and gas consumption to the lowest levels possible and we offer our employees incentives for walking, biking, using public transportation or car-pooling to work. Plus, our office is located one block from public transportation, and we have secure bike storage and shower facilities. Today, over 55% of our employees use alternative modes of transportation. Learn more here.
Green Supply Chain
We choose suppliers that offer sustainable products and services, and support a strong environmental ethic. Assessing the carbon footprint is an important criterion when sourcing suppliers. Whenever possible, we source our ingredients from organic farms and growers. This, in turn, provides support to the environment through our commitment to sustainable agriculture, and by expanding the market for organic products. We buy local whenever possible.
Waste Reduction
Our packaging footprint has been minimized wherever possible including: smaller bags, smaller shipping cases, solvent-free lamination bags and recyclable cardboard. We continually look for eco-friendly packaging materials that meet our performance standards, and look forward to evolving our packaging to more sustainable options, as technology advances.
We have a comprehensive waste management system and our warehouse recycles 100% of all packaging material from supplier shipments, including cardboard, pallet wrap and wooden pallets. Reusable or biodegradable options are used in our kitchen whenever possible.