Ridley’s Games goes eco with internal sustainability initiative

Ridley’s Games – the design-led games brand owned by Chronicle Books and a Disney licensee – has launched an internal Good Clean Fun initiative with the aim to make the future of Ridley’s more environmentally friendly.

The changes will impact the brand’s entire collection including its Disney, Marvel and Star Wars ranges.

The brand has tasked itself with hitting multiple sustainability targets over the next couple of years across packaging and packing.

Packaging and product changes include:

• Use FSC-certified paper for all Ridley’s products
• Source sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic components (e.g. pulp trays and card trays not vac-plastic)
• Source sustainable alternatives to plastic game components (plastic dice to wood, sand timer to a digital app)
• Find a bio-plastic solution for our plastic cases and change cassette cases to card
• Use recycled materials instead of virgin materials where possible
• Remove plastic from transit, using card/paper/tissue instead

The changes mean that Ridley’s’ SS23 collection is already on track to be 80% free of single-use plastic, with efforts being made to increase this to 100%. As for AW23 and beyond, the aim is to be entirely plastic-free.

These are rolling changes that will also be applied to all reprints, with multiple already achieved since April 2022 among several top selling formats: Star Wars Selfish, Disney Villains Selfish and all 1,000-piece and 500-piece Jigsaw Puzzles including the Star Wars Death Star 1,000-piece Jigsaw Puzzle.

The Selfish games now include moulded 100% recyclable pulp trays made from recycled materials, have printed elements made with 30% greyboard and 70% FSC materials and secure seal alternatives, with more changes to come. The 1,000-piece Jigsaws are now made using 56% recycled materials and 44% FSC materials and the 500-piece Jigsaws with 49% recycled materials and 51% FSC materials.

While eco-friendly developments will be standard practice for all new ranges from SS23 onwards, the ongoing goal for older products is to review two historical lines each season to remove single use plastic, replace virgin materials where possible and ensure more sustainable production.

“Under Chronicle, we’ve steadily been actioning more eco-conscious decisions within the brand since early 2021,” commented Jo O’Donoghue, head of product development for Ridley’s Games. “However, we recognise the need for a much bigger impact, so we’ve been working hard on this initiative to challenge ourselves to go further and faster.

“We have outlined a solid sustainability criterion for Ridley’s, and will continue to review our materials and processes per product to see where we can make changes toward a circular rather than linear economy model in our product development and production.”