Caring about the environment is a top priority at LUSH Cosmetics. They have a dedicated team who work hard to reduce waste, carbon, energy and water consumption, as well as people throughout the factory and shops working hard to implement this.
Not content with all of this, from 6th - 15th February 2012, Lush staff themselves will be building the first industrial straw bale cold room used in Europe! Once complete, the cold room will be used to store and cool fresh creams, shower gels and other skincare products, shortly before they are filled and packed to go to their stores.
This groundbreaking project will be managed by Bee Rowan*, one of the most experienced straw builders in the UK. Final external measurements will be approximately 5m x 18m, and roughly 500 straw bales will have been used. There are six full time Lush staff working on the project, while another twenty staff will help for two days when the walls are being built.
The cold room will be built with English straw, resulting in much lower embedded carbon for this project. The straw is grown on a farm in Milton Keynes and is an agricultural waste product from grains production.
Dorset Hurdles, based locally in Wimborne, has provided the green wood to make the poles that pin the straw bales together before they are compressed. They are sharpened using a traditional wood shaving horse – www.dorsethurdles.co.uk
This quality choice of construction material with high thermal performance, low cost and exceptionally light environmental footprint, using locally sourced materials and a build process doubling up as a team building, fun and upskilling event for staff, reflects the ethics of Lush and their commitment to both the environment, sustainable sourcing of materials - for this and their cosmetic products - and to the quality of the working enviroment for their staff.
Ruth Andrade, Head of Lush’s Green Development, comments: "Building a cold store for our factory out of straw bales is a visual representation of our values. We will be able to save energy while keeping our products fresh, we are using natural materials that are so much better for the environment and we can do all of that with the help of our own staff - training them as they help us build and hopefully developing in them a taste for eco building. We couldn't be more proud."
LUSH will be recording the construction process via a daily blog, time lapse photography and a short video, all of which will be available on their green hub on the Lush website: - here
