The last 30 years have been an astonishing journey – from a small one-person business operating from a domestic garage to today’s highly organised efficient operation, centred near Hastings and distributing to over 30 different countries. This growth has been driven by a desire to improve the quality of life for urban users globally by revolutionising the design and implementation of urban green infrastructure.
Trees and the urban environment have always been at the heart of what we do. Far too many trees die prematurely in our heavily engineered towns and cities. Overcoming the many constraints to tree establishment, both above and below ground, has become our raison d’etre – realistically getting green infrastructure to flourish under conditions where it has no right to do so!
From the original RootRain Metro as launched by the then Greenleaf in 1992, to the very first Soil Cell – Root Cell in 2001, to the most widely used soil cell in the market – continued innovation and listening to our customer base have been key to our success.
Included in our passion for green within our grey spaces is a firm commitment to reduce waste material being discarded into landfills or burnt in incinerators.
GreenBlue Urban repurposes millions of tonnes of waste plastic every year by turning this end-of-life polymer into products that support healthy tree growth and assist with stormwater management. This refusal to use virgin material costs GreenBlue Urban more – but confirms our dedication to the environment and to the reduction of our carbon footprint.
Importantly, we manufacture in Britain, for the European market. This is unique in this sector – many products are imported from the cheaper manufacturing facilities in the Far East, but where possible, we manufacture in-house. GreenBlue Urban has recently purchased the manufacturing company that has made our products for decades and brought this in-house so that we have full control of our material sourcing, our quality control and our costs; giving you the assurance that you will get the best quality at the best available price, and that our products are fully recyclable at the end of their life.
Working closely with BBA, GreenBlue Urban has achieved a BBA certificate for the RootSpace soil cell system – a first in the world. Testing continues to upgrade this certificate to gain a higher rating; again, this has not been achieved by any other soil cell. In the meantime, we are about to launch an EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) for the system which can help achieve a better BREAAM rating on new buildings. This costly process is considered critical as we move forward at GreenBlue Urban, as an understanding of construction carbon footprint becomes increasingly important when planning new developments.
At an individual level, the GreenBlue Team are challenged to think of better and less energy-hungry ways of running the business with a goal to reduce stage 1 direct and 2 indirect emissions by 100% by 2025 and long-term goals to become net zero.
GreenBlue is recognised as being an Environmental Entrepreneur – helping us all reduce our burden on our planet.
The predicted running out of fossil fuels allied with climate change is helping us all focus on how we can be more efficient, and effective whilst consuming less of the depleting resources, and GreenBlue Urban is investing heavily in renewable technology, cutting-edge manufacturing, hybrid/electric vehicles and more than anything else, investing in our green infrastructure so that future generations can benefit from our actions.
GreenBlue Urban, innovating for now and for the future – looking forward to the next 30 years!
