Bristol - Evolution Stores

General information

…Evolution is pretty different from other businesses. We don’t make money for owners or shareholders. We don’t have highly paid Managing Directors. We don’t think it’s a good idea to make money regardless of the human cost.

What we really want to do is make healthy profits to give away through our charity, The Windhorse Trust. We believe it is possible to pay our suppliers a fair price for their goods and to make sure that they have safe working conditions. We also believe that it is possible to offer our customers an honest price without loading on a premium because our goods are ethically traded.

Our business has grown from a London market stall in 1980, through temporary shops, to a chain of shops across the UK and Eire, with a large, modern warehouse in Cambridge.

Oh yes…and we are a Buddhist business. What does that mean? It means all our business decisions are underpinned by the Buddhas teachings on kindness, generosity and compassion. Most of us in the Cambridge headquarters and a few of our shop Teams are Buddhist, but our business now reflects an amazing range of religious and cultural diversity. We believe that we all have the capacity to be generous, to be kind and to make a difference to the lives of other people.

Our business may have grown, but our aim remains simple – we want to give away as much profit as we can in order to benefit others. Any profit we make goes to the Windhorse Trust, who distribute the money to a variety of Buddhist projects within the Triratna Buddhist Community, as well as to social projects closely connected with countries and companies that supply our goods.

So we won’t pretend to be slick, or even perfect. What we do have is a sincere belief that even on the High Street we can do business in an open and honest way and in a way that makes a real difference to other peoples lives.