Maidenhead store becomes first 'carbon negative' shop in town

A zero-waste shop in Maidenhead has become the first ‘carbon negative’ store in the town.

Filling Good, located at 22 High Street, is run mostly by volunteers and sells climate-conscious products, as well as food and cleaning refills.

The business was founded in 2019 by Nelly Semaille and started out as a pop-up store inside the Craft Coop in the Nicholsons Centre.

Filling Good has now been recognised as the first ‘carbon negative’ venue in Maidenhead, from electricity coming from a renewable energy provider to its toilet paper being made from bamboo.

In September 2022, during the store’s annual general meeting, Filling Good members voted in favour of a £10,000 donation to environmental projects.

A total of £5,000 of this went to Tree Sisters UK, a UK-based reforestation charity, and £5,000 to two different carbon compensating projects; clean water group Terraclear Project and sustainable energy champions Biomass Power Project.

The whole donation leads to a carbon compensation of 516 tonnes, which represents about 116 years of carbon emissions from the shop.

Sophie Ibison, Filling Good director and co-founder, said: “We believe it isn’t enough to just ‘offset’ your carbon footprint, as the carbon you produce cannot simply be ‘reversed’ or ‘removed’.

“So instead, we strive to reduce our impact before we start to make compensations for it.”

Other ways Filling Good strives to improve its carbon footprint include staff using active travel measures to come to work and containers resulting in less waste being generated.

Nelly added: “We hope that many other businesses and shops will follow us on the path of reducing emissions and carbon negativity, as everyone has a role to play against climate change.”

For more information on the business, visit www.fillinggood.co.uk