The Perfume Shop and the valuable changes the brand is making to the planet
Today, World Earth Day 2024, The Perfume Shop reports its updated initiatives to support saving the environment and planet.
These initiatives include the UK’s biggest perfume bottle recycling service, a commitment to only using recycled materials in their new store refits, a focus on reducing waste and their carbon footprint, and the brand’s continued efforts with the UK’s first industry-leading multi-brand fragrance refill station.
Gill Smith, Managing Director of The Perfume Shop, said, “At The Perfume Shop, we’re always driven by doing good. One of our primary aims as a company is to always put our customers first while promising to focus on what matters the most. We’re proud of the amazing work we’ve already achieved as a business with our partnerships and how we can look to combat larger issues our planet is facing. In 2023, we saw great changes here and want to build upon this as we continue into 2024 and beyond.”
The Perfume Shop launched its most extensive perfume bottle recycling service in 2023 as part of its focus on sustainability and ongoing commitment to combat unnecessary perfume bottle wastage. The Perfume Shop pioneered the first-of-its-kind perfume bottle recycling and reuse initiative back in 2018. In 2023, over 8,611 bottles had been recycled compared to 5,152 in 2022, with a +67% YTD increase within the 209 nationwide stores. New data reveals that refillable fragrances are growing at +23% (compared to +9% for non-refillable fragrances) as environmentally conscious consumers choose more sustainable options. This new market-leading initiative further increases the distribution of perfume refills and widens the choice of perfumes available to refill in-store.
Since April 2021, for every bottle recycled, The Perfume Shop makes a donation to plant a tree and support the ongoing mission to make the planet a greener, more environmentally friendly place to live. To date, 429,021 trees have been planted as a result of this initiative.*
You can find out more about The Perfume Shop’s sustainability commitments here.
In 2023, The Perfume Shop introduced over 27 of its new, modernised, experiential stores. The brand’s stores continue to move towards operating digitally, including customer-facing screens and app-based task management for colleagues. They are also 100% zero carbon with electricity generated by wind, solar, and hydro. The stores continued to benefit from energy-efficient LED lighting throughout, which contributes to The Perfume Shop’s commitment to reducing its energy consumption by 30% by 2030 versus 2015. The extensive expansion of these new refitted stores will continue into 2024 with around 35 more refits planned.
The Perfume Shop launched the UK’s first new cutting-edge fragrance refill station in 2023 to help meet customer demand for more environmentally friendly options, and offers more sustainable refill fragrance choices. Based in Nottingham, the fragrance refill station includes best-selling fragrances. It had been designed to fit within The Perfume Shop’s store look and feel, with the use of the same sustainable materials from start to finish. All size bottles from 30ml upwards of the selected brand on offer can be refilled at the fragrance station. On average, consumers save 29% when choosing refillable options.
To continue to reduce environmental impact, The Perfume Shop invested £2.5M in their industry-leading automated packaging machines. The new systems lead to improved efficiencies with 3 times quicker processing of customer orders and a reduction in packaging of 40%. The packing machines are able to fold boxes to the size of the content included, reducing the overall cardboard and parcel size. Not only this, but the cardboard used is made in the UK and is 90% recyclable. Overall, with these new innovations in place, it has meant a reduction in carbon emissions as fewer delivery trucks will be required on the road.
