Download the Jiffy Sustainability Report 2022, or read on to discover our key achievements in the second year of our five-year sustainability plan.
2022 was marked by the Ukraine war and the aftereffects of covid. Notably, the extremely high energy prices affected our customers and ourselves. These impacts made it challenging to justify some costs in the short term. Nevertheless, we continued to support our customers on their sustainability journey, and we made progress on Jiffy’s own sustainability goals:
- Use more sustainable resources
- Reduce plastics
- Contribute to the circular economy
- Reduce our footprint
“During these challenging and uncertain times, we remain committed to our sustainability goals,” confirms Richard Stevenson, Jiffy Sustainability Manager. “Working on a five-year plan gives us the flexibility to adjust our approach if needed, without sacrificing our ambitious targets.”
Sustainability goal: Use more sustainable resources
Jiffy’s target is to obtain 50% of total raw materials from sustainable sources by the end of 2025. The steps we took toward that goal in 2022 include:
- Increased sales of sustainable fibers at Zwijndrecht, Netherlands, our largest substrate plant, by 381% compared to our 2020 baseline year
- Began construction of an Innovation Center to expand our research capabilities
- Started working with a Lifecycle Analysis Tool
- Certified our European peat fields under the Responsibly Produced Peat scheme
Construction of our Innovation Center began in 2022. It will expand our research capabilities into high-performance sustainable raw materials from 2023
Sustainability goal: Reduce plastics
Our five-year goal is to reduce single-use fossil plastics by 50%. Supply chain disruptions continued to reduce the availability of certain raw materials in 2022, slowing progress on this goal. Nevertheless, Jiffy succeeded in:
- Reducing packaging emissions at Zwijndrecht, Netherlands
- Switching Jiffy-7 polyroll made in Norway to a PLA underlayer, the same biodegradable material used in standard Jiffy Pellets and Jiffy Growblock nets
- Adopting pallet separation sheets made from 100% recycled content for Preforma plugs produced in Spain
Sustainability goal: Contribute to the circular economy
We continue to contribute to a more circular economy through our commitment to switching to recycled and recyclable plastics and other packaging. Initiatives included:
- Finding suppliers of reliable, high-quality post-consumer recycled (PCR) packaging
- Switching several home gardening products to home-recyclable plastics
- Introducing local recovery and reuse of pallets and cartons, and ensuring packaging can be easily recycled where reuse is not workable
Sustainability goal: Reduce our footprint
Our five-year goal is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 25%. Energy price volatility increased costs for ourselves and our customers, and underlined the need to be less dependent on fossil fuels. In 2022 we:
- Increased renewable electricity to almost 18%, up from 6% in 2020
- Reduced CO₂ emissions from electricity by more than 20% compared to 2020, despite increased production activity
- Continued to transition the company vehicle fleet to electric or hybrid engines
“The work we did in 2022 will continue to bear fruit as we enter the second half of our sustainability plan,” says Richard. “As we focus more attention on our value chain, we will work more closely with customers and suppliers to reduce our combined impacts in future.”
Let’s work together
Jiffy is a leading global supplier of premium growing media and solution thinking. We aim to serve you, our customers in plant propagation and cultivation, to achieve better results with fewer worries. We do this by continually improving, innovating, and working toward our common goals, based on scientific research, teamwork, and decades of experience. Let’s develop sustainable plant growing solutions together: Let’s start today!
The full 20-page Jiffy Sustainability Report 2022 has further details on all the above, additional valuable initiatives, information on reporting, and useful visuals. Download your free copy now or contact Richard Stevenson for further information.
