July 2022 Update: 

We are very excited to launch our first retail store that is ‘unplugged’ from the electricity grid, and therefore relying only on solar panels on the roof to provide energy for the fridges, lights and till systems. 

Click here to see a link to a live feed of the units energy system, AC Loads represent the energy the kiosk is using. PV Charger represents the energy the kiosk is generating from the sun, and the battery icon shows the power left within the batteries for the kiosk to use.

Our Promise

Our People Planet Promise is a commitment to the planet, our team and our customers. We’re on a journey to reduce the environmental impact our bakery has, whilst taking action to make greener choices for future generations. Our promises set out the ways in which we are committed to looking after not only the planet, but our people too, who will always be at the heart of our company. 

People

1Development: We’re promising £30,000 every year towards individually chosen personal and extra-curricular development training for all our staff, not necessarily related to their field.

2021: As of October 2021 we have approved 26 team member’s applications, equating to a value of over £18,500. Areas of training include jewellery design, Chinese lessons, Business Management and Digital Marketing. 

2022: For 2022 our ambition is to improve the awareness of the scheme throughout the company and to hit the £30,000 target budget every year, ensuring our team feel encouraged to learn and broaden their skills.

2Everyone has their say:  We’re committed to hosting an annual ‘Blue Sky Thinking’ ideas day for all Lola’s staff to share fresh ideas that we can use as a business, so no matter how big or small someone’s idea is, they can be heard and valued, with prizes for the best.

2021: 9 staff ideas were put forward as part of this day, with prizes equivalent to £775 given to all entrants. 

The two ideas currently being worked on are Cakes by Post, which is in development, and Bake at Home Scones, which is now a purchasable product. 

3Charity: We’re championing charitable causes that are close to our teams’ hearts. We pledge to donate £20,000 to charities every year personally chosen by our people. Each department manager asked their team to vote for a number of charities to support, and donations were made directly to charities following this.

2021: This year we donated £22,776 to a list of the following staff-nominated charities

Sufra, Spread a Smile, Switchboard, Little Princess Trust, GOSH, Better Health, Bakery, Endometriosis UK, RSPCA , Butterfly Thyroid Trust, M&C Foundation, Trinity Church London, YoungMinds, Rainbow Trust Children’s Society, Penny Brohn uK, Dog Trust Charity, Prostate Cancer UK, Ditch The Label, St Mungo’s Children Charity.

2022: Our aim is to sustain this commitment by supporting a number of charities as a business through our chosen seasonal ranges, donating a % of sales to charities. We pledge to continue with this charitable giving every year.

4Inclusion/Diversity: We’re pledging for all of our business leads / department heads to participate in diversity and inclusion training, with a view to creating an even more inclusive hiring and communication practice.

2021: We had leadership team D&I training with The Diversity Trust. We also hired 3 people through the government's kickstarter scheme, which helps those out of work into good jobs. 

2022: We intend to review and publish our gender pay gap early next year so we can identify any inequalities present. 

We will be running diversity & inclusion training again next year for all heads of department and store managers.

Planet

We continue to be inspired by the values of Sir David Attenborough and share his vision in sharing knowledge and taking action in order to improve our planet’s health for future generations. 

5 We’re committing to removing the use of all unnecessary paper across the company by 2025. This will involve reducing all paper usage in our bakery and within the logistics of delivery.

2021: We have reduced the equivalent of 16 Trees per annum (150,000 sheets of paper) out of our bakery process, and are continuing to seek further ways of reducing the paper usage across the business.

Challenges: Requirements associated with Natasha’s Law have required us to introduce new labelling across much of our pre-packed product lines which have resulted in the need to increase the use of paper through labels.

2022: We would like to sustain the same paper savings across two other areas of our business, cupcakes and brownie production. This will equate to the equivalent of circa 300,000 sheets of paper being reduced.

6Transport: We’re going to replace all of our petrol vehicles with electric vehicles by 2030, and we are committed to not purchasing any more internal combustion vehicles.

2021: As of October 2021 our fleet is 25% electric vehicles (6 electric vehicles). We have said goodbye to 2 Diesel vehicles and we applaud the ULEZ restrictions which are being brought in to reduce Diesel emissions in London. We have a further 6 vehicles arriving in 2021.

Through our fuel partner, who delivers fuel to our bakery every evening, we have saved 5356 trips to fuel stations, the equivalent of 16,068 miles. This is the equivalent saving of 421,370kg of co2.

2022: Our aim is to increase our electric fleet makeup and ensure we make a tangible % increase in terms of that makeup to our 2030 target. 50% would be positive by the end of 2021.

7Plastic: We’ll reduce 75% of our plastic from our packaging by 2030. This will involve searching and implementing more sustainable reusability solutions to our offering. All of our packaging will have clear instructions for reuse or recycling.

2021: We have innovated away from Polystyrene in our cheesecake and postal product packaging, we’re now using thermal insulation made up of recycled/up-cycled clothes, that keeps our product chilled on the way to our customer. This product can be reused time and time again, or placed into the garden to home compost. We are also pleased to have begun removing all the windows in our cupcake boxes.

Challenges: Though we have moved away from Polystyrene, we are currently having to use plastic holders for our postal cupcakes to keep them in place during delivery. However, we are providing free return labels in our postal packaging, so that customers can return for us to use again. This is supportive of a circular sustainable way of operating. Every morning, it’s so amazing to see how many customers are sending their packaging back to use again.

2022: We aim to have plastic windows removed from all cupcake boxes.

8Waste: We’ll commit to becoming focused on recycling as much of our waste across the entire business as possible, through the establishment of ‘Waste KPIs’ for our department leads.

2021: In 2021, We have continued to use Too Good to Go, which allows customers to collect any product that isn’t sold at the end of the day. Since inception we have saved over 200,000 cupcakes from entering the waste system, over 50,451 customers have engaged with the offering. This is the equivalent to saving 126.13 tons of CO2E.

We have continued to encourage customers to use their reusable cups for hot drinks rather than our coffee cups by offering 25p off your hot drink if you bring a reusable cup back into our stores.

New for October 2021:

9Knowledge: Through our sustainability partner Next Day Solar, we are committed to sharing our knowledge of renewable energy, to assist our teams, and customers, to live a cleaner and greener future.

2021: We have visited over 8 schools & educational settings to talk about the benefits of solar energy and the environment as part of our sister company Next Day Solar’s www.nextdaysolar.co.uk Pro Bono work. We also attended Fully Charged the Solar energy exhibition and were educating attendees on our efforts there too. 

2022: We aim to power parts of our bakery and offices through harnessing wind and solar energy. 

10  Better ingredients for a better planet : Through our purchasing department, we want to ensure that we are buying from sustainable companies that are playing their part in a greener future. We also wish to ensure that products that contain ingredients that are harmful to the environment are removed from our range.

2021: We are continually auditing and identifying products within our range where ingredients are unsustainable, e.g. containing Palm Oil or including battery farm eggs. We are pleased to have now introduced Free Range eggs across our gluten free range. We have also been engaging with our chocolate supplier ‘Barry Callebaut’ who run a huge project ‘Cocoa Horizons’ which ensures that the chocolate that we buy is harvested in a way that is supportive of the environment and people that work within this industry. 

2022: We have identified a whole list of products that contain palm oil and our product development teams are now ensuring that no new products will contain such ingredients and we are starting to look at alternatives quickly. 

11 Sustainability at the heart of our company

2021: We recognise the mission ahead to ensure our bakery has a ‘modest’ impact on the environment, from buying to all our activities. It's why we are now on the lookout for a sustainability champion, who will lead the company in all its efforts of ensuring a cleaner and greener future. If you’d like to apply for the role contact careers@lolascupcakes.co.uk and tell us why you’d be perfect. 

2022: We hope to have someone in place to work across all of our departments to ensure we lead the way in bakery sustainability. 

Read about more great things we are doing as part of our sustainability efforts here.