At Dobbies, we are committed to educating about the importance of soil health and delivering environmentally-friendly practices and products, and sustainable solutions.

We have a Sustainability Policy which outlines all the work we are doing in this area – this is a journey for our team and we will add and develop this policy on an ongoing basis.

A key part of our sustainability pledge is to reduce the use of peat, plastics and pesticides in our product range. The team are on track with the commitment made in 2020 to be 90% peat free in 2021 and 100% peat free in 2022. We have also worked with our nursery suppliers to produce a roadmap for an annual reduction in peat use.

We are launching a number of new sustainable products in store and online. This includes biochar products from Carbon Gold – Carbon Gold Biochar Fertiliser and Biochar Soil Improver - with Dobbies being the first leading garden centre to stock these products.

Carbon Gold’s biochar products are 100% peat and chemical-free and Soil Association organic approved, and are used by professionals the world over, including conventional and organic crop growers, tree care specialists and even elite sports greenkeepers.

Biochar is so high in carbon that adding it to soil permanently sequesters CO2 from the atmosphere. In fact, biochar acts like natural magic in the garden, with significant and permanent benefits proven to boost the health and vitality of plants.

A garden centre first, in the next month we will launch compost bag recycling in store, in partnership with Evergreen. This will initially launch in 10 stores, with further roll out planned in 2021. New pot recycling stations will also be installed, building on the success of the pot return scheme, as well as a commitment to increasing recyclable plant pots and single use plastics.

As part of #sustaintabledobbies, there is additional focus on the safer range of pest control products, to reduce the impact on beneficial garden insects and wildlife. We do not stock weedkillers that contain glyphosate or slug killers that contain metaldehyde, and rodenticides have been delisted.

For more information on our Sustainability Policy: https://www.dobbies.com/sustainability-policy

For our Sustainable Gardening podcast: https://www.dobbies.com/podcasts