Meet Josh Pitman, Managing Director of Priory Direct — a sustainable packaging supplier — and a kite surfer turned accidental entrepreneur.
Priory Direct is a £10 million packaging business helping more than 16,000 UK e-commerce businesses ship products to customers — with as little waste as possible.
We hear how they’re taking on one of e-commerce’s most overlooked problems. Secondary packaging — the boxes, mailers and dispatch materials that move products from warehouse to doorstep — is a massive and growing waste stream. Josh’s mission is to make it as efficient and as harmless as possible.
Josh traces his journey from cutting out address labels for a teenage kite surfing side hustle, to a beach in Cape Verde littered with plastic, to the light bulb moment that gave Priory Direct its purpose: minimise the impact of e-commerce on the planet.
We explore what sustainable packaging means in practice — forecasting demand, filling lorries, reducing shipped air, and coordinating supply chains across 16,000 UK businesses. The insight that sustainability and commercial efficiency can be the same thing runs throughout.
Josh gives an honest account of embedding sustainability into the business — putting carbon footprint and waste streams on the same KPI dashboard as turnover and profit, democratising responsibility across every department, and letting people surprise you when you get out of their way.
We get into the realities of certifying as a B Corp, working with fast fashion clients without conflict, and why EPR legislation is finally forcing large retailers to scrutinise their packaging spend.
The conversation turns to what’s next — a machine learning forecasting platform funded by Innovate UK, a new life cycle assessment tool covering 14 environmental factors, and an open letter campaign to ban misleading recyclability claims on soft plastic.
Finally, Josh makes a grounded case for why marketing and sustainability belong together — and why green hushing may be more dangerous than greenwashing.
A practical, energetic episode on purpose, packaging, and the unglamorous work of making supply chains less wasteful — one lorry load at a time.
Find out more about Priory Direct at https://www.priorydirect.co.uk/
Ruth Davis
As the Strategic Engagement & Impact Lead and Co-Founder at Oxygen, I specialise in building strong partnerships, leading high-impact projects, and guiding organisations on how to embed sustainability into their communications and strategy. With a Master’s degree in Sustainable Development and a background in strategic and digital communications, I’ve worked with a wide range of organisations – from climate-focused startups and B Corps to membership bodies and community development charities. My experience spans brand development, messaging and strategy, and website projects, all with a clear focus on purpose and impact. At the core of my approach is collaboration. I’m passionate about aligning big ideas with practical action, helping teams turn values into value and purpose into progress.
