Consumers are valuing efforts of brands to become more sustainable.

If you can make a decision that will have both a positive economic and positive environmental impact, why wouldn’t you make those changes?

According to Deloitte, the vast majority (90%) of Gen Zs and millennials are making an effort to reduce their personal impact on the environment. They don’t believe business and governments are as strongly committed, and many are pushing their own employers to take action. (1) (2)

According to Business News, consumers are actively buying more environmentally friendly products (3). 

Here, a list of 12 points to consider while approaching a sustainability-first strategy.

• Update your brand values.
• Reduce returns.
• Implement sustainable shipping.
• Reduce packaging and club orders.
• Ecological plastic-free packaging.
• Deliver with EV.
• Optimise or reduce energy waste.
• Add products that support sustainability.
• Create an offset service charge at checkout.
• Resell your used merchandise or unsellable returns.
• Reduce the use of paper.
• Rotate or change suppliers.

1. Tell your customers who you are, what you value, and list the actions taken and their status. Conveys it consistently on your website, your blog posts, your social media, and all of your content and copy. Some brands include it on their “About Us” page and in a dedicated and well-visible stand-alone “Sustainability” or “Environment” pages. Don’t forget to update your mission and your vision pages.
2. Create a customer-centric return policy to protect you from returns and give customers the confidence to buy from you while communicating to them the environmental impact of returns. Here, merchandising is the king. Clear product descriptions, details for sizes, enriched care, and details about the fabrics or main components help ensure customers understand what they are buying. Commercially, you can offer incentives to customers to keep the item instead of returning it. 
3. Fast shipping is in high demand and this has a huge environmental impact. You may consider adopting eco-friendly programs from major carriers since they offer paperless invoicing and other green options. You may also consider the adoption of recyclable packaging or reducing the amount of packaging. 
4. You may consider buying boxes in more sizes to better fit smaller items. Boxes that are too large not only waste space but also require more packing material to protect items. Invite customers to wait 1 or 2 days more to club the shipment in one unique delivery. 
5. Achieving the balance between solid, safe, and careful packaging, while respecting the environment, is today possible. There are a lot of companies selling recycled boxes plastic-free today to choose from.
6. Consider fleets of electric and ECO vehicles when choosing your last-mile carrier. Almost all international parcel delivery groups optimize their delivery routes to emit as little pollution as possible and many have already adopted electric and/or hybrid vehicles.
7. There are simple changes to significantly lower energy bills and waste such as turning off equipment when not in use, investing in low-energy lighting, installing solar panels in logistics centers, and reducing the temperature in the office. The first step in reducing energy waste in your business infrastructure is to do an energy audit to determine where cuts can be made. You can then start making changes based on what will be the easiest lift with the highest overall impact. Amazon, for example, has set out to reach a sustained operation in 100% renewable energy by 2025. (4)
8. This depends on what you sell, however, one way to make sustainability a key part of your business is to include sustainability-focused products in your offerings, especially as a growing market of customers are interested in buying such products. You can provide more eco-friendly alternatives to existing products or enrich your assortment with goods that allow people to live more sustainably.
9. Purchase carbon offsets. Offsets are measures designed to balance the amount of CO2 (carbon dioxide) produced by investing an equal amount in activities related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Your brand can make investments in offsets a part of your budget or offer customers help by providing an optional offset charge simply at checkout.
10. Help your customers give your products a second life. Products move from being created to being used and then disposed of linearly. A solution could be partnering with suppliers who help you implement the circular economy. Today is full out there of apps reselling preloved items.
11. Reducing the amount of paper and cardboard used in each shipment is today very easy. This more sustainable approach can also be applied to the daily operations of the company, by eliminating the use of paper through digitizing administrative and operational documentation, or by sending the invoice via email only.
12. You may reach your goal to become more sustainable if your suppliers do as well. Assess all of your existing suppliers for sustainability policies, and swap away from those that don’t have them. It’s so powerful because it creates a multiplier effect: as your suppliers reduce their emissions, your emissions reduce too. As you reduce your emissions, the people you’re supplying and working with also reduce their emissions and are thus more willing to work with you. 

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References

(1) https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/genzmillennialsurvey.html

(2) https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/deloitte-2022-genz-millennial-survey.pdf

(3) https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15087-consumers-want-sustainable-products.html

(4) https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/environment/sustainable-operations/renewable-energy