Boots UK

Nottingham has been home to the Boots brand since its humble beginnings when John Boot opened a small herbalist store on Goose Gate in 1849. The Boots UK Support Office is currently located on a 279-acre site in Beeston in Nottingham, which was purchased by Boots in 1927 to expand the company’s manufacturing capability.

Our first Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant was constructed at the Island Street site in Nottingham in 1915 and Boots has been producing power to run its business and manufacturing over the last 100 years. In fact, our site in Beeston still produces, manufactures and distributes products to our c.2,500 stores using the power generated by our own on site CHP plant.

Since 1915, a wide variety of energy initiatives have also been adopted at Boots. One of the most recent is our EnergyCare programme. Boots Group Engineering provides valuable expertise internally to the Group on efficient ways to generate, purchase, use and conserve energy; sourcing and purchasing over £30 million worth of gas, electricity and water every year. A 15 MW CCGT, completed in November 1996, provides power, heat and compressed air to the site.

The centenary anniversary celebrations of CHP Plant energy generation organised through the EnergyCare programme, included a celebratory event held at our current CHP plant which was attended by current and former employees, and an outdoor cinema showing where some of the audience produced all of the power needed for the film screening by pedalling bicycles.

On the Beeston site, Ibuprofen was invented and leading brands such as No7, SEVENTEEN, Boots Soltan, Botanics and Boots Pharmaceuticals have been, and still are, developed, formulated and manufactured.

As a retailer everyone knows and trusts, we want to be a business that is working on a wider scale to help tackle energy issues. Here are some of the ways we are championing for change towards a low carbon economy:

• We have been generating our own energy since 1915 when our first Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Plant was constructed at the Island Street site in Nottingham
• We generate the majority of the energy for our Nottingham support office site using our own, highly efficient Combined Heat and Power (CHP) energy centre
• Our other sites, stores and warehouses across Great Britain are using 100% certified green electricity (excluding landlord supplies). 
• [carbon trust] We hold the Carbon Trust Standard, an independent accreditation that acknowledges our commitment to reducing the carbon footprint of our business, and confirms that we have robust processes in place to monitor and reduce energy emissions
• [princes mayday network] Since 2007, we have been members of The Prince’s May Day Network, a network of over 3,800 businesses committed to working collaboratively to tackle climate change, helping to build a sustainable future for our planet

Boots The Chemists is now a division of Alliance Boots PLC. Our policy aims are to sell products which in design, manufacture, use and subsequent disposal have proper regard to the environmental factors, keep down waste of materials and energy and encourage recycling, cut pollution of land, air and water and take environmental impacts into account in all planning and decision making.