All manufacturers have the power and responsibility to benefit the environment through carbon footprint reduction, product innovation, and education – and as a leading player within the shower industry, Mira Showers continues to take steps towards more sustainable solutions for its customers and its Associates too.
Mira understands that sustainability is a journey and is committed to creating sustainable solutions and innovative technologies to help customers make positive changes in their own sustainability journey. This task also starts with encouraging green behaviours in its own team, helping them to think sustainably both in the workplace and at home.
Mira’s workplace initiatives
As winners of the Bathroom Manufacturers Association’s Workplace Initiative Award, Mira understands the importance of its role and so promotes sustainable and green initiatives from the start of its associates’ careers. With an established and award-winning apprenticeship programme that’s over 60 years old, the brand sees how important it is to nurture healthy habits within new talent that can contribute to the business both during their tenure, post-graduation and long into their careers.
The business currently has 18 apprentices across multiple disciplines and different stages of their apprenticeship. One of the unique elements of its programme is the Apprentice Association and the cross-functional workstreams that the association owns. Its 2021-2022 cohort created the first Sustainability workstream that involved cross-functional Engineering and Business Apprentices working together to drive communication of some of Mira’s lesser-known sustainable initiatives around the business whilst looking for opportunities to make improvements and promote Mira’s own sustainability discussions.
The Sustainability Workstream developed the creation of an internal group email address and placed ‘Buzz boxes’ on the production floor for Mira Associates who didn’t have email addresses. These were introduced to welcome stories and suggestions from Associates around the business and encourage conversations around sustainability and the small initiatives everyone could take to make an impact business-wide.
By identifying multiple opportunities for working more sustainably, the workstream created an internal newsletter called ‘Think Sustainably’. The newsletter’s first features included highlighting Associates that go above and beyond to minimise Mira Showers’ environmental impact. One of their first stories highlighted a Production Cell Captain who recognised an opportunity to further sort faulty componentry, enabling both the packaging and the component to be recycled and driving sustainable change through product manufacture.
Apprentices in the workstream also had access to a network that enabled them to get involved in other initiative green-minded projects, such as the planting of wildflower gardens around Mira’s Cheltenham site to encourage biodiversity through wildlife.
Think Sustainably also included Mira’s plans to electrify their company fleet by 2027, as well as additional developments to their recently opened National Distribution Centre. After receiving the Carbon Reduction BMA Sustainability Award last year, the NDC will see further improvements with the installation of solar panels this year. This latest development will transform the Centre into a carbon-neutral facility, putting it firmly on the path to achieving Net Zero. Mira Showers is passionate about sustainability and corporate social responsibility and aims to reduce its carbon footprint and solid waste by 3% annually, achieving Net Zero with offsets by 2035.
Having recently published its Environmental, Social and Governance report, the brand showcases the progress they have made on this journey. Successes such as removing polystyrene packaging from all their trays and replacing this with an environmentally friendly, 100% recyclable solution illustrate how the business is looking to further embed sustainability into its daily business operations and beyond.
To read the Mira Showers ESG Report, click here.
This guest blog was provided by Mira Showers.