Ecotopia.co.uk is your ethical online supermarket for everyday products, ethical gifts, eco-friendly gadgets, fair trade and organic groceries. Established in 2002 with assistance from the Prince's Trust, Ecotopia assists people in leading a more natural and lower impact lifestyle. Behind every product sold at Ecotopia is a story. Not only are these stories about environment and ethical issues - they are stories about small companies that we are proud to support.
We believe there are simple choices people can make every day, that can make our world a better place in which to live. Ecotopia.co.uk offers ethical and environmentally-friendly products that allow people to make these positive choices for themselves, their communities and the planet. Enjoy shopping with us!
Our history -from a small acorn.......
Ecotopia, the UK’s leading ethical and environmental online store, was established in 2003 by Steve Jones. Steve, who worked as a web designer in a previous life, had a vested interest in the ethical world, having graduated from Oxford Brookes University with an Environmental Science degree.
After spending a year traveling throughout South East Asia and Australia, Steve made a decision to set up a shop and website dedicated to environmental conservation. It had always been a serious interest and after experiencing the environmental philosophies of different cultures first-hand, he felt impelled to realise his plans.
Ecotopia was born out of an idea to create an environmental supermarket offering the products that people use everyday. Something simple and useful, that made doing the right thing really easy.
Ecotopia wasn’t intending to reinvent the wheel, only to offer a one-stop shop creating ease of access to competitively priced alternative products. With much support and a £5000 grant from the Prince’s Trust the first Ecotopia shop opened in the small town of Nailsworth, Gloucestershire in 2003.
The key purpose of the shop was to offer customers a diverse range of useful environmental products and a personalized and stimulating service. The key lay in educating customers that caring about the environment need not cost the earth and inspiring people to make a small and environmentally positive change in their daily lives.
The shop was a success and the products were in high demand. So much so that the shop grew quickly and had to be relocated to the larger town of Stroud to accommodate its growth. The website was doing rather well too, leading Ecotopia to win the Business Link ‘E-commerce Initiative of the Year’ award in 2005.
In 2005, Miles Owen, an old school friend of Steve’s, joined Ecotopia. Miles had been a travelling partner of Steve’s in 2002, when many a night was spent discussing sustainable business ideas over a few beers on the beach.
With Miles on board Ecotopia continued to grow from strength to strength and in 2006 was short listed for a prestigious Observer Ethical Award. The company was also nominated in the Daily Mail Ideal Home Show ‘Sustainable Retailer of the Year’ awards.
In 2006 Steve & Miles decided to outsource Ecotopia’s IT, freeing up their time to research new products for the website. The brand grew strongly throughout 2006 and in early 2007 Ecotopia closed its high street presence to focus all its attention in meeting demand online. Online sales were already contributing 90% of total sales for the brand, and moving into a purely online offering allowed people from all over the country to take advantage of Ecotopia’s unique service.
........to a bigger tree
Now 6 years old with a bigger and better website and thousands more products in cluding food and drink, Ecotopia.co.uk is your ethical online supermarket for everyday products, ethical gifts, eco-friendly gadgets, fair trade and organic groceries.
All the merchandise sold in Ecotopia can be browsed via the website at www.ecotopia.co.uk . This easy-to-navigate site also offers an online buying service as well, with delivery available throughout the UK and overseas.
