A SOCIALLY INCLUSIVE SHOP STOCKING CHEMICAL-FREE EARTH CONSCIOUS GOODS SUPPLIED BY SMALL FARMERS, PRODUCERS, MAKERS AND ARTISANS LOCALLY AND ACROSS THE GLOBE. Back to Basics Ethical Shop will be selling Earth Conscious goods with befriending ‘court yard’ seating area surrounded by wooden and earthy feels for a nature-mimicking therapeutic atmosphere; welcoming elderly wheelchair users from the local residential care homes. We set up our CIC as a retail outlet to supports local farmers, beekeepers and community gardens alongside small micro businesses locally and across the UK to gain an outlet opportunity providing they are within our ethics of chemical-free, sustainably grown or direct from the makers or producers, creating local economical growth.

What we'll deliver:

• Build a self-sufficient upcycled Ethical Shop using materials which would ordinarily go to landfill.
• Sell chemical-free products and locally sourced produce from community gardens and farmers
• Run eco-brick workshops from packaging produced from the shop
• Build foldaway chairs and tables to ensure wheelchair flexibility inside and out
• Provide a Changing Places toilet for those with complex toileting needs - there's only ONE in the whole borough!
• Build a wheelchair gardening space besides the shop to share therapeutic benefits with wheelchair users
• Have a flexi-workshop space where members of the community can meet the farmers/makers to build on community strengths
• Create a Courtyard therapeutic feel for the community to utilise as a befriending space
• Staff trained with sign language and Braille supplier stories throughout

Why it's a great idea:

We are stocking chemical free products from small producers which are not harmful to the planet and are not contributing towards the pollutants in our air or ocean. Even with the toiletries and cosmetics which we will stock, if it’s not biodegradable or compostable, it’s chemical-free which means we are contributing less synthetic matters to seep back into our water supplies which harms ocean life. Where possible, all of the glass or aluminium containers which these products come in are returnable for a discount or reduction on the customer's next order. This creates a refillable concept, resulting in less packaging into landfills. The reason this ethic is important to us is because many animals which make up the planet’s ecology is becoming endangered and without small and simple solutions of waste and plastics, we are at contributing to damaging many aspects of our natural environments, soil biodiversity and those very core ingredients which support life itself.

Steps to get it done:

• Purchasing Plants
• Purchasing one container for Ethical Shop
• Making the land wheelchair accessible - flattening and suitable angled ramps
• Purchasing another container for flex space workshop
• Collecting unwanted pallets
• Building wheelchair-friendly gardening space
• Purchasing container for Changing Places Toilet
• Getting Braille printed for all suppliers' stories
• Buying equipment for community mosaic stone floor
• Complete fencing for courtyard perimeter
• Cladding containers with bamboo

We hope this concept could be replicated throughout, so there will be many social inclusive shops around, offering great chemical-free alternatives to everyday essentials and supporting local community farmers to keep the local farming knowledge easy to access for children of our future.