environmental strategies for retail companies

Introduction

This page concerns environmental strategies for companies which buy and sell physical goods.

Examples include online sellers, community stores, high street outlets and retail warehouses.

Whether or not taking action on the environment is worth doing right now will depend primarily upon the moral stance of your staff and management and, perhaps most importantly, the impact on demand for your services.

The usual starting point is for us to create a tailor-made Environmental Strategy Report for your company, to serve as a framework within which you can outline your ambitions, quantify your emissions and assess progress on your various positive actions.

The second part of the process is the attainment of carbon certification, the primary mechanism through which you can broadcast your environmental achievements.

Carbon certification is usually achieved through the purchase of carbon credits (most commonly from tree-planting projects), with the required quantity being determined by the annual calculation of your emissions and the level of certification that you select.

With the potential for particularly high customer visibility, achieving a level of carbon certification can be a great motivating factor for both staff and customers, leading to significant commercial advantages, which usually far outweigh the modest costs.

For retail companies there are three levels of certification.

Carbon aware certification

Carbon aware is the entry level certification. It tends to work well for companies which are just getting started with the whole process and want to keep their initial expenditure to a minimum.

Being carbon aware means that you simply offer your customers the option to offset the carbon footprint of the products that they buy from you, which typically adds around 0.2-0.8% to the invoice value..

We can help you set this system up in such a way that you can purchase the appropriate quantity of offsets from us retrospectively and we will then plant the requisite number of tropical trees.

It is important to make the point that your carbon aware certification is not affected by the proportion of customers who choose to pay for the carbon offsets. So long as you have introduced them to the concept, that is as far as your obligation goes.

If a customer chooses not to take up the offsetting option, the product’s carbon debt remains unpaid. Becoming carbon aware is therefore not an ideal solution from an environmental perspective, but it is a decent step in the right direction.

A major attractions of this level of certification are that it let’s your customers know that you are taking action on carbon, it typical involves very little direct cost to the company and the offsets can represent a significant source of additional income, as they carry a modest retail margin.

When it comes to guide prices for the first year, the Environmental Action Report typically works out around GBP 1000 / USD 3600 per million turnover. You may also like us to assist with implementing your Surcharge Process for around GBP 1000 / USD 1200. These costs tend to be around 70% lower in subsequent years.

Carbon neutral certification

Carbon Neutral is the most popular level of certification and is suited to a very wide range of forward-thinking brands.

Being carbon neutral means that you offset the carbon footprint of your company infrastructure, but you do not take responsibility for the carbon generated by your product (which remains the responsibility of the consumers).

It’s a great place for most companies to start, being simple to achieve and usually relatively low cost.

Carbon neutral status is achieved through the payment of an annual fee, based upon our assessment of your carbon footprint.

For a retail company that typically includes carbon emissions resulting from your administration buildings, indirect staff and associated extras.

It does not usually include your warehouse, stock, packing and distribution costs, which are all considered part of the ‘product’.

Depending on your brand, products and customer expectations, you may also choose to offer your customers the chance to offset the carbon footprint of the products that they buy. This can be done in on the voluntary basis described in the Carbon Aware section above or on the more onerous way described in the Carbon Free section below. But this is not an obligation under Carbon Neutral certification.

When it comes to guide prices for the first year, the Environmental Action Report typically works out around GBP 1000 / USD 3600 per million turnover. If you choose to go Carbon Neutral, that usually falls in the range GBP 275-525 / USD 330-630 per employee, depending on your level of emissions. These costs tend to be around 70% lower in subsequent years.

Carbon free certification

Carbon Free is the highest level of certification.

It is usually associated with companies which have environmental values deeply embedded in their brand strategy and whose customers who are highly responsive to positive environmental messaging.

For the right type of retail company, carbon free status can be a very powerful motivating factor for customers, delivering commercial advantages which far outweigh the relatively modest costs.

Going carbon free means that you take full responsibility for the carbon footprints created by both your company infrastructure and the products that you sell.

For retail companies, going carbon free is relatively unusual. It is more common for your suppliers (the manufacturers) to provide their products with carbon free status, in which case you can potentially piggy-back on that.

When it comes to guide prices for the first year, the Environmental Action Report typically works out around GBP 1000 / USD 3600 per million turnover. You may also like us to assist with implementing your Surcharge Process for around GBP 1000 / USD 1200. The cost of purchasing carbon credits can vary enormously (depending on your company description, the proportion of your products that you source from carbon free companies and the level of take-up from your customers), but typically falls in the range 0.0-0.6% of turnover. These costs tend to be around 70% lower in subsequent years.

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Services and costs

In this article we describe the services that we offer and the process through which we would guide you, on the way to fulfilling your environmental ambitions.