91探花

Rukhsar Ahmed and Cain Fleming co-founded Green Fulfilment in Glasgow in 2016. In under a decade, they have built it into an eight-figure, multi-site operation with over 100 employees, fulfilment centres across the UK and the Netherlands, and a client base of more than 100 eCommerce brands.

The business holds B Corp certification, one of a very small number of third-party logistics providers in the UK to do so. We spoke to both founders about what it actually took to get here, and why they believe sustainability and commercial performance are not in tension.

Key Facts – Green Fulfilment:

• Founded: Glasgow, 2016
• Revenue: Eight figures
• Team: 100+ employees across UK and EU sites
• Footprint: 125,000+ sq. ft across multiple fulfilment centres
• Certifications: B Corp certified
• Recognition: Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year nominee; Times Newspapers SME Rising Star; Cain Fleming named Young Business Person of the Year at the Glasgow Business Awards 2024

What Was The Original Insight That Led To Green Fulfilment?

Rukhsar: I had acquired a business in the mail fulfilment sector before this. That gave me a ground-level view of how logistics operations actually work. It also made it very clear, quite early, that eCommerce fulfilment was going to grow faster and become a far larger opportunity than traditional mail. That conviction shaped everything that followed.

Cain: My background was in digital marketing and eCommerce. I had founded and run other businesses, so I understood how online brands operated and what frustrated them about fulfilment. The gap between what eCommerce brands needed and what most 3PLs were offering was obvious. We both came at the problem from different angles but we reached the same conclusion.

Why Glasgow And Why Sustainability From Day One?

Rukhsar: Glasgow was where we were based, and it made commercial sense. But the sustainability piece was not a marketing decision. It was a values decision. If you are running a logistics operation and you are not thinking about waste, energy, and environmental impact, you are not running it properly. We wanted to build something we were proud of, and that meant doing it the right way from the start.

Cain: The logistics industry has a significant environmental footprint. We felt there was a real opportunity to show that you could run an efficient, commercially strong fulfilment operation without treating sustainability as a cost to be minimised. B Corp certification came later, but the underlying principles were there from the beginning.

What Does B Corp Certification Mean For A Logistics Business?

Cain: It means your environmental and social practices are independently verified to a high standard. It is not self-reported. For a 3PL, that covers everything from how you manage waste and energy in your warehouses to how you treat and develop your people. It is a rigorous process and it requires ongoing commitment, not a one-time application.

Rukhsar: For our clients, particularly brands that care about their own environmental credentials, it matters. They are not just outsourcing order fulfilment, they are outsourcing part of their supply chain. If that part of the chain does not reflect their values, it undermines what they are trying to build. B Corp certification gives them a verified answer to that question.

How Did You Scale Without Losing The Things That Made The Business Work?

Rukhsar: People. That is the honest answer. We have over 90% staff retention across a three-year period, which is unusual in this industry. When your team is stable and experienced, your operations are stable and accurate. Clients feel that. The 95% customer satisfaction rate we maintain is a direct consequence of having a team that knows what it is doing and genuinely cares about the work.

Cain: On the operational side, we invested in our own technology platform early. Real-time inventory visibility, multi-channel integrations, reporting that gives clients actual data rather than lag. That infrastructure is what allows you to grow without things breaking. You cannot scale on spreadsheets and goodwill.

What Has Been The Hardest Part of Building The Business?

Cain: The peaks. Q4 is where 3PLs either prove themselves or lose clients. Managing volume spikes while maintaining accuracy and dispatch times is genuinely hard. We have built our processes and our team around that pressure, but it does not get easy just because you have done it before.

Rukhsar: Expanding into the EU was a significant step. Opening the Venlo facility in the Netherlands required a different level of planning and risk. But for UK brands shipping into Europe, having in-region fulfilment is not a nice-to-have, it changes the economics and the delivery experience fundamentally. Getting that right was worth the difficulty.

What Do You Know Now That You Wish You Had Known In 2016?

Rukhsar: That the relationship with your clients matters more than any individual service feature. Clients do not leave because of a single bad pick. They leave because they do not feel like a priority. Building an account management model where clients have a real person who knows their business is something we got right, but I would have structured it that way even earlier.

Cain: I would have invested in the technology platform sooner. We built good processes manually for a while, and that worked up to a point. But the earlier you have robust systems in place, the more confidently you can grow. Tech is not a cost you delay, it is the foundation everything else sits on.

What Are You Building Towards?

Rukhsar: A business that proves you do not have to choose between growth and responsibility. There are not many B Corp-certified 3PLs operating at our scale in the UK and EU. We want to make the standard, not the exception, and we want to be the business that other eCommerce brands point to as proof that it is commercially viable.

Cain: More clients, more locations, and a continued focus on what actually works: experienced people, good technology, and a genuine commitment to doing things properly. The fundamentals do not change as you grow. They just need to be protected more deliberately.

operates fulfilment centres across Glasgow, Swindon, and Venlo, Netherlands. The business is B Corp certified and serves eCommerce brands across the UK, EU, and globally.