We provide a merchandise solution
that creates global brand cultures
while reducing emissions
and building a better society for tomorrow.
Trusted by Amazon. Trusted by Nike. Trusted by Canon. Trusted by Chubb.
The Accent Difference
Our clients consistently thank us for our prompt response rates and care in curating custom presentations of innovative product that fit well within our client’s desired image, budget, and turnaround time. However, at Accent®, we view these services to be the bare minimum a company within the branded merchandise industry should offer.
Where we shine is our internationally consistent services. Even within North America, many companies with Canadian locations find themselves shipping merchandise across the border, with huge costs in carbon emissions, shipping fees, and duty. Accent can effortlessly transform this process to keeping shipments domestic, with identically stocked product ready to be decorated in facilities in both countries.
This service is only enhanced when dealing with offshore companies and becomes an absolute transformer on the merchandise carbon cost and budget when we are able to assist transatlantic clients. The products we offer on both sides of the Atlantic are often not identical, as we are keenly aware of the cultural differences that still exist and different standards such as A4/8.5” x 11”, different electrical outlets, etc. However, they are very close and thus protective of a single brand standard across the globe, which our clients understand is more and more vital as the world becomes increasingly interconnected.
eStore Services
The Accent® and Streamline® partnership specializes in enabling companies with global locations to coordinate their branded merchandise worldwide.
With our distinctive capabilities, we are pleased to offer custom built webstores for EU/UK, US & CA.
1 webstore. Multiple currencies. Locations in 3 different countries.
Staying relevant in an industry ready for change.
Regular interaction between NA & UK continents provides a constant flow of ideas for new systems & solutions.
Not content with our success in this area, we also traverse the globe, networking at industry events across NA, Germany, and Hong Kong, ensuring we are first to distribute new innovations in the industry.
As always, our top priority is developing exciting new products from SMEs and/or with sustainable materials.
For example, partnering with a small business to distribute items like our activated charcoal soap is something we are truly passionate about.
Reinterpreting
branded merchandise
as a luxury
to be proud of.
Your logistics partner.
Our global network enables Accent to focus on producing closest to the need. This reduces the number of miles travelled per product.
In addition, working with Streamline in EU/UK means that we can collaborate and work together on sourcing stock for different regions. By bringing the stock in to each region by sea freight, this makes a huge reduction in Co2 emissions with air shipping producing 47x more carbon than sea freight. Due to experience and foresight in buying patterns, even during the pandemic, Accent seldom had to use air freight to bring in stock for their large client base!
Gift Box Programs
Yes, we do gift box programs!
Warehousing is FREE
A kitting/handling fee per box applies
Ship Point ZIP 13634 in USA, K7H1P9 in Canada, Edinburgh in UK
An online portal can be provided to submit addresses for boxes
Yes, we keep your information private, please enquire for details.
Holiday Gift Portals
Employees love to choose a gift they want and need.
Accent can provide a purpose built online portal, specifically for this event. You can make it available for a limited time for employees to select their preferred item and input their office location/size/color of gift as applicable. This populates a spreadsheet, providing your HR team with a hassle free solution.
Sustainability
Many Accent® team members have children of their own and this only serves to feed our passion to preserve the world we live in for the leaders of tomorrow. Our in-house Sustainability Officer has been part of our team since 2009 and has a qualification in Environmental Biology. This is why we have been able to precede the merchandise industry with the wide range of sustainable products we offer.
Our current Carbon Emissions program was set up in 2021 with the target plan to reduce pre-Covid figures by 20% before January 2023.
The below measures have proven key to our success in this area:
Incentivizing employees to purchase or use hybrid or electric vehicles.
Encouraging employees to walk to work where possible. (This has reached an all-time high of almost 25%)
Transportation of materials is centrally planned to ensure efficient vehicle usage and minimizing unnecessary journeys.
Encouraging employees with distances to travel to our offices to continue a hybrid work pattern. We now have approx. 20% of staff working from home every day.
Vehicles only carry necessary loads and unnecessary equipment is required to be removed.
Delivery vehicles must turn off their engines whilst at Accent premises.
A/C and heating in our offices must be kept within the required levels.
Tree planting initiative.
Utilizing the UPS Offset Carbon Program and making this available to our clients.
Further plans include either changing our Ontario, Canada warehouse to a greener energy supplier by Quarter 1 or entirely relocating this warehouse to a more efficient facility. The decision made will be dependent on overall emissions savings taking into account daily travel requirements and all other impacts.
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One Tree Planted.
Accent Group has a tree planting initiative in conjunction with One Tree Planted where we can offset travel and energy carbon impacts using their service. More info can be found here: onetreeplanted.org This organization has planted over 40 million trees since its inception wherever they are needed most. For example, a current project is taking place in India, which has some of the worst air quality in the world, and communities are also being educated on how best to care for their country. We are eager to make this program available to you and plant trees in conjunction with our work together.
Since March 2020, Accent Group has continued to communicate with clients via video call platforms. This has proven successful, and we intend to continue this practice going forward to assist with further reduction of carbon emissions. Estimated total across 2021 is 3,000,000 kilograms of carbon emissions saved by video call meetings across US/Canada and Caribbean.
No-to-Landfill
Accent has a “No-to-Landfill” program, with a target to reduce our waste to landfill by 20% in 2023 over the previous year. Employees are trained and encouraged to follow the first available option on this list – 1: Don’t use; 2: Reuse; 3: Gift/donate; 4: Recycle.
Accent has been on a completely paperless system for many years, with the only exception being printing machines with re-usable ink cartridges provided in warehouse locations for the purpose of shipping waybills only. Paper is purchased from recycled sources.
Only reusable cups & cutlery are provided in office and our reusable lunch boxes made with bamboo fiber (also a great success with clients!) are available and encouraged for use.
Items that have been used and cannot be re-used either by us or by a member of the wider public are recycled through our ongoing partnership with GIM to prevent any unnecessary materials going to landfill.
Packaging Program
Since 2018 Accent have introduced an aggressive program to reuse 35% of all packaging.
The first step was to set up a segregation program of all box sizes which are able to be reused. The second step was to use these boxes between our locations and suppliers.
The third step was to raise an awareness campaign with our clients of what we were seeking to do, but without compromising the protection of their products. We have information stickers put on each box advising why they are receiving a reused box.
#MaketheSwitch
We encourage clients to procure products that have sustainable packaging. For example, we promote branded sweet cups that are made from PLA, a 100% biodegradable material that is certified through thorough testing for food safety. We offer recyclable cardboard packaging for water bottles and mugs rather than the clear plastic alternative. Accent strives where possible to offer clients merchandise with packaging that will reduce the ecological footprint of their and our business.
Our Key Account Managers advise clients against procuring plastic products and actively encourage sustainable alternatives when presenting solutions. We are proud to be able to offer alternatives including upcycled fabrics, bamboo, sugar cane, rice, wheat straw, recycled PET and Fairtrade organic cotton to name a few.
One Warm Coat
Another initiative Accent is passionate about is supporting the One Warm Coat organization, where we are able to donate and in effect, recycle to the best advantage, jackets, hoodies and any other warmer clothing.
This means any returns, samples, discontinued apparel is put to excellent use rather than just shredded and recycled to a fraction of its original value utilizing carbon resources in the meantime. With donation locations right across US and Canada, we are able to encourage clients as well as our team members to participate. We are also actively investigating other areas of the business where we could initiate more such solutions in various product areas.
Diversity & Inclusion
Accent has built a team to include many different cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs, and stages of life. We have done this by ensuring recruitment programs are based on predictive talent management taking into considerations the applicants’ personality traits and character using studies such as Pittari®. Experience is considered only to learn where strengths have been best utilized in the past. Recruitment managers do not review nonessential personal information that could impact decisions due to conscious or unconscious bias. Gender, family or relationship status, race, or other personal factors are nonrelevant and we do not request this information to be disclosed.
Accent believes equality in the workplace is vital to good working conditions and that motivated team members are the reason for the superior service we offer our clients. Average pay at Accent is currently well over 2.5 times living wage with a plan to substantially increase this benchmark within the upcoming 5 year period. We value the personal lives and schedules of all our employees and for this reason our company hours are 100% flexible. Remote work is not discriminated against or discouraged in any way. An office is also provided for employees who prefer to travel to a dedicated place of work. Bereavement leave is unlimited inclusive of miscarriage at any stage. Unlimited time is also granted for religious events and occasions of any nature. Employees are encouraged to travel for pleasure periodically and provided with company-sponsored flight or ocean tickets. Company-paid training, including for skills unrelated to a team member’s role, is available and encouraged. We are proud of the supportive culture we have built at Accent and gather and implement all employee feedback to improve our workplace.
Training sessions are held for each employee once annually on our top priorities:
Harassment, including verbal, physical, implied, or any form, ensuring our team members know their rights in every situation including where they feel judgements are being made based on personal factors such as gender, race or other personal factors, and are well equipped to best react if they find themselves in a situation they deem threatening;
Disability training, ensuring our disabled team members are at no disadvantage in our workplace either in the perceptions of their colleagues or the setup of our workplaces and systems, as well as ensuring disabled clients receive the same Accent experience as their counterparts with all accessibility tools available;
Workplace safety, protecting our team members in the event they do interact with any potentially dangerous goods or substances, such as lithium batteries, during the course of their work and they know both how to prevent and their rights on the occasion of injury of any form in the workplace, including burnout or mental health events.
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© 2022 Accent
