“Liam is a constant oracle for our waste questions”

As a fulfilment, warehousing and logistics specialist with an £80 million turnover, ILG works with major global brands from around the world, including Charlotte Tilbury, Trinny London and Dock & Bay.

Headquartered in East Grinstead and focusing predominantly on the fashion, wellbeing and beauty sectors, the company employs around 600 staff and processes thousands of orders a day at its 12 specialised fulfilment warehouses across the UK and EU.

Sustainability is high on the agenda and its teams are working hard to meet the goal of being Zero-By-30.

Playing a key part in supporting them is Grundon, which has provided waste management services to ILG for nearly a decade.

Together, the two have achieved impressive results – in 2024, 77% of ILG’s waste was recycled – thanks to an ongoing series of initiatives including installing soft polythene balers, a new food waste service and more compactors.

Andy Hunt, Marketing Director, says: “In the last four-five years, sustainability has become much higher on our agenda and forms one of our four strategic pillars, which are reference points for the way we operate the business.

“There will often be requirements around compliance and regulations and we want to be able to respond to that and make it work. For us, it’s not just a top-down perspective, it’s a bottom-up one too and that’s why the team works so hard to harness engagement from people within the business. We have green champions and a range of tactical sustainability initiatives and it is the accumulation of those small differences that come together to help us meet these ambitious targets like Zero-By-30.”

Activities have included ESG Month, Volunteers Week and World Environment Day; together with Sustainable September and a Christmas-themed event encouraging staff to repurpose their decorations.

Helen Nichols, Facilities, Environmental and Sustainability Manager, says: “Good waste management is very much part of our sustainability programme and we are very reliant on staff on the shop floor making sure they use the correct waste streams in order to avoid contamination and hit our targets.

“For us, it’s all about making waste fun so it becomes part of their daily DNA and staff don’t see it as a chore. We have games, competitions and activities, and Grundon is very good at helping us get the message across. We also promote Recycle Week and Liam (Nelmes) from Grundon will visit our sites, often with a colleague, to support our waste awareness days and roadshows to show what can and can’t be recycled – and why – so we can all become more informed.

Employing a diverse workforce, the ILG team ensures that waste disposal is made as easy as possible. Every waste stream has its own colour-coded bins and clear signage provides a visual reminder.

ILG opened its latest facility in Northamptonshire in 2024 – Brackmills 2 is a new 180,000 square feet state-of-the-art facility situated close to its Brackmills 1 site, both of which are serviced by Grundon’s Banbury depot.

Brackmills 2 boasts the full range of Grundon compactors and balers, as well as dedicated skips for wood waste and Dry Mixed Recycling. The installation of a bespoke dock loading compactor enables loading to take place from internal docks rather than outside, making the whole process more efficient.

To help spread the waste management message, waste awareness days were organised by Grundon to show employees the correct way to segregate waste and help improve recycling rates.

ILG’s other UK operations at Burgess Hill and Crawley are serviced by Grundon’s Gatwick team.

Grundon’s Liam Nelmes explains the benefits of baling soft plastics

Baling cardboard for reprocessing helps ILG earn a rebate.

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Balers are also behind the cardboard recycling success story. The tonnage of cardboard arriving at ILG sites has nearly doubled over the last five years, being able to compact it both reduces the amount of storage space required to store the bales and reduces the number of waste collections required.

Segregating both the soft plastics and the cardboard for reprocessing enables ILG to earn a rebate, which is then offset against their wider waste management charges.

All ILG’s own paper and cardboard packaging, used as part of the fulfilment process, is made from recycled materials.

Grundon also facilitates stock disposal on behalf of ILG’s customers, for example, out-of-date products, working with the team to determine the best route.

Ahead of the new Simpler Recycling legislation, Grundon has also just introduced a new food waste collection service, ensuring that instead of going into general waste, food is now segregated and sent to Anaerobic Digestion (AD) facilities for processing into energy and bio-fertiliser.

Also taking further materials out of the general waste stream is a new textile waste service, which enables old uniforms to be collected and shredded.

ILG already achieves zero waste to landfill, as any waste which cannot currently be recycled or reprocessed is sent to Grundon’s Energy from Waste (EfW) facilities, where it generates electricity.

Grundon’s regular reporting and statistics provide valuable information, both internally and externally, as Chloe Gibbons, Facilities, Environmental and Sustainability Advisor, explains: “At the start of every year we do a round-up for staff about how we are performing on waste, so being able to have all the data and show that they are making a difference is really helpful.

Helen concludes: “As our business continues to expand, so too are the amounts and types of waste we are dealing with.

Andy agrees and says with business growth of between 10-15% a year, it’s important to be able to respond to accommodate both the increased throughput of goods and the diversity of clients.

“Last year, in November and December, we processed a million orders a month – a record for us – and as we continue to onboard new clients every year, we are dealing with greater varieties of packaging and we have to be ready for those new challenges and changes in the requirements needed to deal with them,” he adds.

Liam Nelmes says: “ILG’s recycling rates are amazing and are testament to their ethos and the passion of the whole team to get waste management right.

“The company’s continued growth brings an ever-increasing variety of materials to deal with and, as Helen says, we are constantly looking at new ways to recycle or reprocess, as we have done with waste streams such as food and soft polythene.

“For the future, one of our goals is to look higher up the waste hierarchy, with the aim of encouraging customers to reuse packaging materials or find more sustainable materials as part of the ongoing sustainability drive.

“We work really closely together and I look forward to continuing to push the recycling figures even higher as we look to achieve even greater success.”