Cosy Direct (Cosy), which was founded in 2011, specialise in providing natural education environments for Early Years and Primary schools in the UK. This includes providing sustainable, biophilic-designed furniture, fixture and equipment for both indoor and outdoor learning. Their product portfolio include: small equipment sets such as beanbags for outdoor seating and felt animals to aid with wildlife identification; classroom bookshelves and storage solutions; outdoor seating areas; outdoor climbing equipment and play stations, complete room designs.
The business aim is to get children outdoors, or close to nature by bringing outdoor aesthetics and natural materials inside. There is a strong emphasis on creating healthy educational environments in nurseries and schools that promotes engaging and caring for nature whilst reducing anxiety and stress in children.
Cosy now serves 30,000 schools in the UK and supplies 50 countries worldwide.
Sustainability is at the heart of Cosy and is embedded in the company’s products, infrastructure and work ethic. Their furniture products are made using raw wood and 17% of all products are circular or low process. Ethically, 90% of Cosy’s business is sourced from craft businesses in UK and Europe. Cosy have received several awards including most recently two prestigious National Kings Awards for Sustainability and Export; one of only 49 companies in the country to hold a double.
Business Purpose and NBS Approach
Cosy Direct was initiated by a desire to help reduce the acknowledged ‘nature deficit’ in children, which was negatively impacting children’s behaviour, attention spans, and contributing to child obesity. Whilst educators recognised that getting children learning outside was important to combatting this, often they were reluctant to take resources outside as they would get damaged, or there wasn’t any space that could accommodate students during bad weather.
Primary schools and nurseries are such brilliant places; they are really hotbeds of nature and civic work. So therefore, we really, really focus on that in terms of our resource and what we produce.
The business began by building outdoor storage systems and shelters which encouraged outdoor independence in 3 – 8 year olds. These sold in tens of thousands, and business was also bolstered by the Department of Health and Social Care (UK) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines on physical activity for children. According to the WHO guidelines, children aged one to four spend at least three hours a day being physically active including the outdoors, while children aged five to 17 get at least 60 minutes a day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (WHO, 2019). This then extended to ‘bringing the outside in’ product concept and Cosy developed indoor products that replicated the texture and look of the outdoors.
If you look at our Wicker products, there are things such as the texture, the shape and the unformed nature of it feels like it could be outside. It's got much, less sort of urban design feel to it. And that's very important to us. So making calm classrooms with textures and shapes.
Cosy consider nature-based solutions to be a vehicle that enables them to address environmental concerns, such as deforestation and flooding. Whilst the main incentive for setting up Cosy was to address sociological concerns, using nature to do this means they have an even wider benefit environmentally too.
It's an orientation or a lens to look at things to remind you of the silent. There's certain things in your life that are silent. Don't speak up and you've got to find a way to bring them to the front of visibility.
Nature-based solutions projects
Examples of NBS project Cosy champions are:
- Tree planting at primary schools in conjunctions with Derbyshire County Council
- Supporting biodiversity of business site by installing bee hives and encourage beekeeping by staff
- 50% of the suppliers they deal with are nature-based. Not only is the material natural and sustainable, as most suppliers are local, Scope 3 carbon emissions (supply chain based) are minimised
NBS Approach
Cosy’s approach to NBS is multi-level and build on championing internal and external relations to support nature in a tangible and impactful way. the features of this approach are:
Internal multi-level support for NBS
You only need one person and then to attach another person to that. Give them a little bit of resource time or money and then a bit of profile for that and then just incrementally grow it.
Hands-on community work that matters
Everyone knows someone that's doing something. That's our view. And so we want them to feel they can bring them forward and we'll support them in a very undramatic (way) hat can be quite in grassroots. That can make quite an impact on people.
Cosy carefully considered the local communities around them and specifically seek to support them by challenging themselves to visit all villages and towns which surround them, tracking intervention on a map visible to all colleagues. These interventions range from providing selection boxes at Christmas for pre-schools to a newer initiative which plans to develop walking groups.
Driving green initiatives through ISO 14001
Replacing all the bulbs and things like that to put them into low tech. We've got all of our cars our EV cars; we have EV chargers here. And then the location itself, we look around that and say, well, what can we do? And the first thing when we laid the car park was to put a porous car park down. So the runoffs less because we're on a hill working for floods, it's better that way.
Getting employees motivated and engaged in NBS has helped embed nature-based practices at Cosy. The most high-impact approach to this has been their volunteering scheme. Whilst there are a range of options available for employees to engage with both onsite and offsite, a large proportion of the volunteering happens in local schools.
Effective volunteering for teambuilding and local impact
We fund three volunteering days in a year. We organise those volunteering days for everyone. So we get 100% NBS engagement and one of the big things that we do is we close the whole firm down - 130 (employees) and we go and just do a ground force day with 10 schools, which usually ends up digging stuff or painting fences.
Positive impact of volunteering resonates throughout the year for both clients and staff. Not only do employees get to spend three fully paid days out in nature, but they also get to work alongside people from other teams within the organisation, which enables people to break away from their usual role within their established team and form new connections.
Rewarding volunteering at local schools
Mixing teams means that more people get together, so that really works well as well for us. And of course, the schools are so delighted and the feedback so great on the day from people and from the schools. So we have an internal WhatsApp, it explodes on that day. There's so much content. That everyone can feel good about sharing. It's got many, many good parts to it.
This volunteering structure has been so successful that Cosy are hoping to expand it next year to include facilitating 25 external companies in providing volunteering hours at schools too. An interesting side effect of the volunteer days is that they also help develop and identify new leaders within the company.
Cosy works with groups with special educational needs (SEND) by offering volunteering opportunities and engagement with a core business. There is a group of young adults with special educational needs who come to tend the 100 strong species of plants across Cosy’s NBS projects.
Supporting SEND and disadvantaged communities
So (we have a farm) where Thors Cave is; it's just on the edge of Thors Cave (near the Manifold Valley just north of Ashbourne). It's just there and that's hosting 300 kids from Derby City schools that otherwise wouldn't get a break; it's a full fuel injection of nature. That's probably the biggest thing.
We work with prisons. We employ prisoners because there's great people work there. I mean, forget the fact it's good for prisoners. That happens to be very good at the same time. But actually we are just finding great talent.
Cosy owns a farm in Derbyshire and run Derby Kids camp, which enables hundreds of children from Derby City to stay for a week during the summer and engage in outdoor activities such as night walks and cave climbs. Nature has a powerful impact on learning and child development.
Nature and learning intertwined
I realised that there was so much that you did with children between 1-2 and three (years of age) outside. That then disappeared once you got to nursery school; and certainly when you got to primary school. It's all based on play based learning for children and keeping that going as long as possible. If you went to Finland or even parts of Denmark and Holland or Germany, you've got a much more play based learning up to seven years old. There's a lot more unformed, structured play in nurseries in nature. And so I was really trying to make sure that we could bring that to the UK.
NBS Barriers
According to Cosy, the barriers to NBS implementation include:
| NBS Barriers |
Examples |
| Lack of visibility for some of NBS activities and results |
Some of NBS initiatives have low visibility that needs to be enhanced and bought to attention. For example bee hive have a big impact but less visible
than goats on site. |
| Need for specialised training in some NBS cases |
Cosy funded specialist training for 3 members of staff to look after 5 hives and over 1000 bees onsite. This required additional resources and commitments from the management team. Both can be in short supply in some businesses. |
| Lack of alignment between business strategy and NBS activity |
Linking NBS to the actual reason of the business and the output of the business can give it weight in terms of embedding it. |
| Perception that NBS is just for a short-term gain |
Often NBS is seen as tick in the box for environmental sustainability reporting which leads to short-term view of engagement, resourcing and impact of NBS. Employees need to be encouraged and supported to engage in NBS initiatives in the beginning to help embed them long term. |
NBS Enablers
Enablers to NBS implementation are identified as follows:
| NBS Enablers |
Examples |
| Multi-level involvement in NBS across organisation |
Multi-level engagement across organisation is important to successful integration of NBS in organisational culture and strategic priorities. Most success comes from close integration between business strategy and NBS initiatives. |
| Robust programme of NBS activities and dedicated leadership |
Internally, the most effective and significant factors for successfully implementing popular, effective, companywide NBS have been setting up a robust programme of activities, identifying leaders to drive NBS, and validating NBS actions through internal communications. |
| Linking NBS activities to the value it offers customers |
Linking NBS activities to the value it offers customers also supports this internal validation of NBS, as well as attracting further customers to the company, as NBS activity is considered to elevate the status of the business. |
| Easy access to NBS engagement and visibility |
Getting involved with NBS programmes - whether it be as a team leader, team member or one-time engager – needs to be easily accessible, and all activities need high visibility internally to establish impact and importance. “People can see and can engage with it.” |
| Staying up-to-date with latest NBS approaches and environmental news |
It’s also important to read around the topics of environmental action and NBS intervention to see where individual actions feed into the bigger, global picture of NBS. Social media is a great way to find focussed groups who share academic information and current news on NBS developments locally and globally. |
| External validation of NBS success |
Finding external ways to validate NBS actions, such as the awards or certifications like the ISO 14000, can focus internal activity onto an end goal and build pride in NBS commitment throughout the organisation. |
NBS implementation tips
- Start by engaging those who are naturally involved with NBS and environmental action
- NBS work needs to be a multi-level sell within the company
- It’s better to grow NBS involvement than impose it. Look at what current staff are already interested in and use that as a starting point
- Recognise what you are already doing and expand from that; this is a good starting point that can stop it from feeling overwhelming
- Networking is an excellent way to find support with NBS implementation
- It’s important not to get so extreme about NBS implementation that you become distracted from the core purpose of your organisation. Whilst there is a risk of doing too little, there is also a risk of doing too much
- What is key is trying in the first place and not being too absolutist if things don’t work perfectly first time
“Improve one thing and celebrate it, however small the change is. ... It’s got to reward you, and you’ve got to want to do it.”
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