Sustainability Claims Policy
In short: This page sets out exactly which sustainability claims Blue Apple Garden makes, the sources we rely on, and — equally important — the claims we explicitly refuse to make. It exists so customers, trade buyers, and regulators can verify our claim discipline at a glance.
Why this page exists
Sustainability claims in horticulture are increasingly scrutinised by the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), trade buyers, and informed consumers. We believe the most useful way to earn trust is to publish the matrix of what we say, what sources back each claim, and which common industry framings we deliberately avoid because we cannot substantiate them. This page is the public record of that discipline.
What we say (and the source for each claim)
| Claim | Source / Basis |
|---|---|
| Major UK retailers and institutions have moved to peat-free amateur growing media: B&Q (since 2023), Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (end-2025), Royal Horticultural Society (January 2026), Verve (January 2026) | Public announcements by each org |
| There is no statutory UK peat ban in force as of April 2026; a Horticultural Peat (Prohibition of Sale) Bill was introduced in Parliament in February 2026 as a private members' bill | UK Parliament public records |
| Coco coir is a renewable by-product of coconut industry processing | Standard horticultural-substrate references; Van Os 2008 (peat-free coir chemistry, peer-reviewed) |
| Buffering of coco coir displaces sodium from cation-exchange (CEC) sites and lowers electrical conductivity (EC), preventing calcium and magnesium lockout | CANNA "Coco Buffering" technical brief; Van Os 2008; University of Florida IFAS Extension on coir |
| Our buffered coco coir targets pH 5.5–6.5 and EC below 0.5 mS/cm in fresh hydrated coir | Our own published spec, lab-tested per batch before dispatch |
| Our coco coir is sourced via direct import from Kerala, India | Verifiable on our trade and import records |
| A 5 kg compressed coco coir brick expands to approximately 75 litres of hydrated growing medium when soaked in roughly 20 litres of water for 20–30 minutes | Our own product spec; consistent with general horticultural references for compressed coir |
Claims we deliberately do NOT make
Some industry framings sound persuasive but cannot be substantiated. We do not make these claims, regardless of marketing pressure:
- "Carbon-positive." A coco coir product cannot be carbon-positive in any peer-reviewed framework. We do not make this claim.
- "Carbon-negative" or "net-zero certified" without published methodology. If we can ever publish a peer-reviewed life-cycle assessment with named functional unit and system boundaries, we will share the figures and the assumptions. Until then, we do not assert net-zero status.
- "Raw / unbuffered coir will harm your plants." This overstates the case. The accurate framing is that unbuffered coir can cause calcium and magnesium lockout in retail-gardening conditions without Cal-Mag supplementation. Experienced growers can and do use unbuffered coir successfully.
- "The only peat-free option that works." There are several legitimate peat-free options (wood fibre, composted bark, coco coir, blends). We're confident in coco coir for our use cases, but we won't disparage other peat-free formats.
- "100% sustainable" without boundaries. Coir has trade-offs — including freight emissions from the Chennai/Kerala-to-UK shipping leg. We will publish those numbers when our freight LCA is finalised; we won't claim "100% sustainable" without that boundary disclosure.
- "RHP-certified" or any third-party certification we do not currently hold. If certification is added, the certificate itself will be linked from our product pages.
- "Free UK delivery on orders over £X" if we don't have that threshold. Our actual policy is "free UK delivery, no minimum spend" — we publish what we actually do.
Our boundaries — how we measure
When we cite quantitative sustainability figures (where applicable), we will name the functional unit (e.g. per litre of hydrated growing medium), the system boundaries (cradle-to-grave or cradle-to-gate), the data vintage, and any allocation method used. We will not cite numbers in marketing copy without those four pieces of context, because numbers without context are misleading.
For peat-avoided claims specifically, we reference Stichnothe 2022 (white peat 183 kg CO₂e/m³ use-phase; black peat 257 kg CO₂e/m³). For freight, we use UK Government 2025 emissions factors applied to the Chennai → Felixstowe sea route (approximately 7,379 nautical miles). When we publish these comparisons, the working will be shown.
How to verify
The retailer/institution claims above can be verified directly on each organisation's website (B&Q, Kew, RHS) or via UK Parliament publications. The technical chemistry references (CANNA, Van Os 2008, UF IFAS Extension) are public horticultural-science sources searchable by name. Our own spec figures (pH, EC, hydrated yield, batch-test status) are published on every product page and on the trade-growers page; our trade buyers receive batch-test summaries on request.
Reviewed and updated
Last reviewed: April 2026. This page is reviewed quarterly, or whenever we add a new sustainability claim to our marketing copy. To raise an issue with any claim on this page, contact us at sales@blueapple.uk.com.