Whether you sell food, beauty products, or clothing items, your retail store could be having a negative impact on the environment, encouraging people to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly starts with their shopping habits. If people are purchasing imported products that are heavily packaged and have been created under unfair trade regulations, then they will be supporting a company that does not care about the planet. If you care about the environment and want to make your retail store sustainable, here are 4 things that you can do.
1. Use Energy-Saving Appliances
Switching to energy-saving appliances and fixtures will make your business more energy efficient and will save you money on energy bills. One of the first things you can do is be smart about your lighting. This includes switching to energy efficient bulbs, encouraging employees to turn the lights off when they are not in use and switch to automatic light sensors or controls to conserve energy. You should take good care of your air filters and tune up your HVAC equipment yearly. Installing a programmable thermostat and sealing your cooling and heating ducts will also reduce your carbon footprint.
2. Promote Sending Digital Receipts
Traditional receipts are a pain. Customers lose them, which can affect the return of an item and cause complications. It clutters up wallets and refilling the receipt printer with paper will require time and money. This is why many businesses are opting to go digital when it comes to sending out receipts. These are both eco-friendly and customer-friendly. When it comes to going paperless, one option is to email receipts to your customers instead of printing out a physical receipt. If this won’t work for any reason, then another good option is a micro receipt, which will save paper and wallet space.
3. Encourage Reusable Bag Use
Plastic is an extremely damaging waste product that is filling up our oceans and harming our wildlife. Reusable bags have become more popular over recent years and are becoming very prevalent in retail stores. This is great, as it reduces the number of single-use plastic bags ending up in landfill and escaping into natural environments. You can encourage your customers to use reusable bags by charging a fee for throwaway ones, pointing them in the right direction and making the reusable bags easy to transport and fun to look at. If you offer single-use bags, then provide biodegradable options.
4. Eco-Friendly COVID-19 Protection
Since the recent outbreak of COVID-19, people are more aware of the things that they can do to reduce the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, plastic gloves and disposable face masks are being used more often and are starting to litter our natural spaces. In order to protect your staff and customers against COVID-19 and reduce your waste output, you should consider installing protective, wipeable barriers, like Sneeze GuardEZ, and encourage your employees to wear washable and biodegradable PPE. You should also use eco-friendly, organic cleaning products, refillable soaps, and hand sanitizers.
Making customers and employees aware of the sustainable changes that you want to make to your business will raise awareness. It will give people the opportunity to see how their shopping habits affect the environment and how they can reduce their carbon footprint in simple, yet effective, ways.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
