TONG Garden Centre is making strides towards sustainability with a new appointment to its team.

Steph Bates, 33, from Menston, has joined the growing garden centre as a People, Culture and Sustainability Business Partner.

Her role is to lead the sustainability agenda at Tong Garden Centre and to apply it strategy to future developments.

"Our aim is to be Carbon Neutral by 2026. My first focus is to create a robust sustainability roadmap and to explore the actions it will take to make sure we achieve this," said Ms Bates. 

 "This year, we are dedicated to reducing the impact our waste has on the environment and we have mapped out several pledges to help achieve this, including re-educating our teams about the community benefits of being a sustainable business; continuing to re-use our food waste as biofuel; engaging with our suppliers to deliver a Circular Plastics Economy and re-using and recycling wherever possible.

 "Early signs of our pledge are looking promising. We now convert all of our used oil and food waste into biofuel, and with the introduction of enhanced recycling streams, we have reduced our general waste content by 35 per cent within the first five weeks.”