The Isle of Wight’s Garlic Farm has celebrated its first anniversary of being certified as a B Corporation by B Lab, the global not-for-profit network.
Having been recognised as meeting rigorous social and environmental standards, The Garlic Farm has joined a growing group of organisations using business as a force for good.
The B Corp certification addresses the entirety of a business’s operations and covers five key impact areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. Working towards B-Corporation helped to stimulate a renewed focus into the Farm’s ethics and values.
Their achievements in year one are remarkable!
Landfill
In their first year, through education and improving recycling processes, they have diverted 52.1% of their waste to landfill and reduced food waste by 31%.
They’ve also installed a new composting system and wormery, allowing them to compost 50% of food waste on site into high grade compost for their soils, saving more than 400kg of carbon emissions.
Energy and water
Across their sites, they’ve decreased electric use by 29% with more than 25% of energy now generated by solar panels. They’ve also reduced fuel use for their biomass boiler by 20% since 2019 and trained their team on the most efficient use of the wood burners, resulting in fewer logs used from their own managed woodland.
They’ve reduced water usage by nearly a third and installed a system which processes wastewater from the restaurant, shop and accommodation, purifying it into clean water they can use in their fields.
Environment & Ecology
Next on the Garlic Farm B Corp agenda is a process to transition the product range and restaurant to match the organic status of their farming. Then they’re on a mission to assess everything they can, from their carbon footprint, biodiversity and soil health, to the team’s wellbeing.
This is an ongoing process, always learning from other B Corps and looking to the organic farming community for inspiration and education.
Great work!
