“Through signing up to a Planet Mark certification, businesses are also joining a like-minded community of members who connect at regular events and on social media platforms. We also host industry-focused roundtables to share best practice, as well as toolkits, blogs and resources to promote continual learning.”
Malkin launched his new brand at the start of February this year, and this marks the next phase of Planet Mark: giving the programme a more modern, fresh look that will help the programme to expand on a global scale.
Planet Mark currently has just under 200 certified members, currently mostly in the UK, but the programme also has members from across the globe too including Malaysia, Indonesia, Hungary and Belgium. According to Malkin, Planet Mark is aiming to be the most widely recognised sustainability certification scheme in the world, having doubled its membership base over the last year and aiming to double each year over the next 10 years.
Says Malkin; “Part of the reason why we undertook the rebrand was so that our certification became more recognisable to an international audience. We hope to expand our member base and offer our robust certification to more companies around the world which, in turn, will strengthen our community of like-minded people who are creating a world of difference.”
Having listened to Steve Malkin’s aspirations for the Plant Mark scheme, we asked him what plans were in place for targeting sectors relevant to the retreading sector i.e. recycling businesses, tyres and transport.
“These are sectors where we know we add significant value,” he explained. “We are producing specific guides and content relevant to waste and transport and are looking to partner with several trade associations across within these sectors to accelerate our reach. Bywaters and iRecycle are two examples of Planet Mark members in the waste management sector.”
In addition, Planet Mark will be launching a product certification programme in the coming months, which will calculate the carbon footprint of a product or suite of products using the lifecycle analysis (LCA) approach.