At OfficeMax, we feel strongly about supporting local businesses and local communities. We have almost
800 New Zealand suppliers and 91% of our product purchases are from suppliers based in New Zealand.
We recognise the important role that business has to play in supporting equality and in celebrating diversity within our workplaces and communities. We believe everyone should be treated fairly and given equal opportunity and our research suggests this belief is widely shared.
We’re helping those who are helping others
As well as making a difference directly through our own social and sustainability initiatives, we’re supporting some of New Zealand’s many social enterprises that are working hard to create a more equitable world by enabling the sale of their products via the OfficeMax website.
Downlights
Downlights is a New Zealand-owned social enterprise that manufactures luxury candles, diffusers and other fragranced products.
Downlights employ young adults with Down Syndrome and cognitive disabilities and support their learning and development with a variety of workplace skills.
Trade Aid
Trade Aid is a social enterprise creating fairness in trade, founded right here in New Zealand in 1973. They work with small food and craft producers around the world, and support and educate kiwi consumers to join us in creating a world where trade is fair for all.
Frank Stationery
Frank Stationery donates a school exercise book to a child in need for every notebook they sell. Since 2012, over 75,000 school books have been donated to Kiwi kids through this initiative.
Will&Able
Will&Able is a New Zealand charity business which employs almost 80 staff with disabilities.
Will&Able manufactures a range of cleaning and hygiene products for the home and workplace, which are made from sustainable ingredients and packaged in bottles made from recycled milk bottles.
Karma Drinks
The word ‘karma’ came from an idea they had about forming a company to find ingredients that were good for the land, good for the people who grow them and good for the people who consume them.
1% of revenue from every Karma Drinks goes to their cola nut growers and their communities in Sierra Leone. The Foundation guarantees the funds raised help drive economic and social independence.
Common Good Coffee
Common Good Coffee has a goal to create positive change in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the world. $5 from every kilogram of coffee sold goes to Joyya in Kolkata, to help fund improved healthcare and educational opportunities, employment kick-starters, legal aid promoting human rights, and prevent human trafficking.
Keep New Zealand Beautiful
Keep New Zealand Beautiful is a not-for-profit charitable organisation that is committed to inspiring, educating and empowering the community of Aotearoa to restore, preserve and improve New Zealand’s climate future through active participation.
OfficeMax donates $1 from every Nescafé Classic 1kg tin sold to Keep New Zealand Beautiful – with over $25,000 donated in 2021.
Charity Tea
Charity Tea sells ethically sourced, certified organic tea to raise money for charity. Every packet sold either feeds a child in Haiti (in their feeding programmes), or a child in New Zealand receives a school lunch.
All packaging is compostable, refillable or recyclable and they are the only gold standard Ekos-certified climate-positive tea company in New Zealand.
All Heart NZ
Our partnership with All Heart NZ makes it easy for our customers to dispose of redundant furniture in a way that benefits the community and promotes recycling and repurposing.
All Heart is a charitable trust that supports New Zealand and Pacific communities in need by donating goods from partner organisations.
We love what All Heart does and we’re exploring further opportunities with them, such as recycling single-use PPE from a customer through Critical Design.
This is just the start
We want to support more organisations like these. We’re working with Akina, New Zealand’s leading impact development consultancy, to find more social enterprises whose goals we can contribute to.
To find out more about our commitment to social justice or any of the awesome organisations described here, please talk to your OfficeMax account manager.
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