Online shopping has boomed in recent years. The convenience of having what you want delivered right to your doorstep has become more popular than ever.
But there’s another significant change today addressing global warming. While consumers love the convenience of online shopping, they’re also becoming more conscious of their shopping habits and supporting sustainable businesses.
So, as a thriving online business, how can you contribute to a more sustainable supply chain that satisfies both your customers and protect the environment?
1. Switch To Green Packaging
You can take a lesson from the food service industry: ditching the non-recyclable packing materials and going with green shipping packaging.
Non-biodegradable items, such as foam packing peanuts and bubble wraps, can take hundreds of years to break down in landfills. Printed labels leach glue and ink into the earth, poisoning animal and plant life.
Switching to biodegradable and renewable packaging materials is one of the quickest changes you can enforce in your online business. Consider adopting the following materials into your packaging efforts:
- Corrugated cardboard that can be easily recycled
- Micro-fibrillated cellulose that’s made of renewable plant materials
- Boxes made of recycled paper and other materials
- Shredded paper in place of packing peanuts and bubble wraps
2. Reduce The Packaging Size
Switching to green packaging won’t be enough. To further make your packaging greener, you can consider reducing your packaging size as well.
It helps cut back on waste, as well as reduces your shipment’s weight, which will result in lower overall costs. Plus, packing a small item into a big box is a common packing mistake and one that customers are quick to notice.
Thus, make sure that your packages are packed efficiently in the right box size. Just don’t cramp it in tight packaging that can damage the goods inside.
3. Select The ‘Offset Carbon’ Option On Checkout
Carbon offsetting is a way to help reduce the harmful effects of a specific carbon-emitting activity by funding activities and projects designed to soak up the resultant emissions, reduce future emissions, and give back to the severely impacted communities.
The likelihood of your business cutting out certain carbon emission activities completely is low. However, carbon offsetting allows you to at least minimize the effects of such emissions and still contribute to a more sustainable future.
Adding this option on your online shop checkout means that an extra fee is charged to your customer in order to make shipments carbon neutral.
4. Choose Green Partners
Whether you’re a carrier or a shipper, don’t underestimate the influence you have on your partner’s business models.
Being connected in a supply chain, each business relies on one another. And as an online seller, your shipping partner relies on your money to stay profitable. This means that by offering your budget to sustainable shipping companies, you can provide an incentive to those that have not yet turned to green shipping solutions.
In order to find carriers aligned with green efforts, you can use SmartWay. This is a program offered by the US Environmental Protection Agency that tracks and measures fuel efficiency, emissions output, and other environmental data across the shipping sector to boost green shipping efforts.
Businesses that have joined SmartWay offer hard data about their shipping practices, giving you a concrete way to identify those that meet your preferred eco-friendly benchmarks— whether that’s prioritizing energy efficiency in their supply chain, using alternative fuels, or reducing CO2 emissions in their transport or manufacturing processes.
You need to register as a SmartWay partner to search for businesses that put green freight transportation at the center of their shipping practices, so you and your consumers can feel good about where your money goes.
5. Establish A Sustainable Returns Program
As you ship more products, you’re more likely to receive a higher number of returns. Thus, it’s important to develop a return plan that takes both costs and the environment into account.
It’s ecologically irresponsible to process a return because of the pollution created and the fuel used in sending your product back. Moreover, if defective items are destroyed instead of being returned, there’s a different environmental impact in disposing of the product.
For valuable products, you can accept them back and refurbish them, so as not to waste the materials used in making the goods. Or you can donate it to non-profit organizations. For the less valuable items, you can simply refund customer payment or send a new product without requesting a return.
Take Away
With an industry that heavily relies on fossil fuels and is one of the top producers of waste, online businesses will have to transform the way they do their business. Hence, make sure to follow and implement the above strategies into your online business to reduce your carbon footprint and make your customers feel great purchasing from you.
Article Submitted By Community Writer