the blender

the earth's favourite little healthy drinks factory

the blender IS on of the world's first sustainable Factories. If we asked you to name a bunch of sustainable things, we doubt they'd make the list. There's a much higher chance you'd go for old favourites like wind turbines, grass, reusable coffee cups or jumpers knitted by your great aunt Mabel. But we're on a mission to change that by building the blender – our very own carbon neutral, super sustainable factory complete with wind turbines, grass and reusable coffee cups (we're still trying to get hold of jumpers from Mabel).

Once it's finished, we'll be able to make our drinks under one roof and will be a step closer to our goal of being carbon neutral by 2030. Here's how the blender is going to be better for our planet, our people and our business as a whole.

planet-friendly

Here at innocent, we want to leave things better than we find them. That applies to everything – from the draining board in the kitchen, to the farms where we grow our fruit, to that slightly bigger thing called planet earth. Along with 500 of our fellow B Corps, we've committed to being carbon neutral across our entire business by 2030. By building the blender, we can slash the amount of carbon in our bottles and make sure we hit our target.

The blender will be one of the world's first carbon neutral factories, built with sustainable and locally sourced materials. We've come up with all sorts of clever ways to reduce the amount of energy we need (by reusing heat for example) and for anything we do use, we'll make it ourselves using our own solar panels and wind turbines. By choosing the Port of Rotterdam as our home, we're taking millions of miles off the road, which means we're taking tonnes of carbon off it too. Our orange juice, which still needs to go by road, is moved from A to B using the world's first heavy duty zero emission electric trucks. If everything goes to plan, the blender will cut our overall carbon footprint by about 10%.

On top of all the carbon-saving, we've reduced the amount of water we need too. We've fitted a snazzy cleaning system that mostly uses air instead of water, and will never let a drop go to waste by returning it to Rotterdam's water network through an on-site treatment plant (provided by EVIDES). Rainwater is used to flush our toilets. Any waste we do have is reused or recycled locally.

a factory for people

We want the blender to establish a new kind of factory work. One where people work better and go home happier. We are aiming for it to be the first WELL-certified factory in the world, which means it'll have all the things a great working environment needs. Like plenty of daylight, space to move around, great air quality, healthy food, temperature control that won't have you reaching for a jumper in August, and a bit of peace and quiet when you need it. Just like our offices, we want the blender to feel like a community a safe place where people are empowered to be the experts in their field and inclusivity, diversity, transparency and fun is a top priority.

Beyond the well-insulated walls of our healthy little drinks factory, we'll make sure we're being good neighbours and helping to support the local community. We'll hire local workers, invest in local suppliers, volunteer for local causes, offer opportunities to people finding it hard to enter the world of work, and team up with schools so students can learn about sustainable factories.

better business

Building the blender is really important if we want to become a business that's good all round. But we can also use it to show other organisations how they can become better too. We want it to be a shining example of a sustainable factory that will inspire businesses to push the boat out when it comes to their own factories a and hopefully do it even better than us. That's why we're going to share everything we've learnt with anyone who wants to hear about it. From the technology we use, to the sustainability work we've done, to all the mistakes we're making, that information will be made available to everyone. Even our closest competitors. Gulp.

setting the standards

The WELL standard is a really useful tool for improving health and well-being in buildings all over the world. Their framework helps companies like us design a working environment that looks after the needs of everyone who works there.

BREEAM is a well-established method of assessing, rating and certifying how sustainable buildings are. Its main aim is to reduce the impact buildings have on the environment by looking at things like waste, water, energy, land use, health and well-being.