Protecting the future of our planet is becoming increasingly vital and businesses now face amplified legal obligations regarding their impact on the environment and disposal of their waste.
It’s all too easy to bury your head in the sand or scoop your plastic under the carpet however a lack of consideration in regards to your environmental impact can lead to serious reputation damage, as well as disruption to your business plus substantial financial penalties.
You only have to look at the press coverage on Iceland’s latest TV advertisement on Palm Oil and the array of brands facing tough questions on their practices to know that this is a topic for serious consideration.
Contrary to popular belief, adopting environmentally friendly practices can actually provide substantial savings whilst making sure you comply with existing regulations and enabling you to be better prepared for future legislations.
And the good news is…..it’s really quite simple to achieve! – Even in the context of promotional marketing planning.
Environmentally friendly practices can be introduced at all stages of a campaign
Being the cogs behind many well-known campaigns we feel it is important to protect the environment we work and live in as well as the reputation of the brands we support. As such, we pride ourselves on encouraging best working practices. These include:
We also carefully manage client’s campaigns with bespoke reports that monitor risk such as slow moving stock. This means we can be consultative at the start of a campaign and assist in predicting trends and demands for products to save on unnecessary waste.
We also monitor the collection traffic from MRM to ensure we fill each vehicle as much as possible at the latest time slot to reduce traffic to a minimum and are committed to offering the re-use of packaging supplied with incoming stock on outgoing stock or as shredded filler, rather than purchasing costly materials.
Our in-house IT Team have developed our fulfilment system to always select the most appropriate packaging for the job, negating the use of oversized, wasteful packing or the inclusion of unnecessary fillers such as un-environmentally friendly bubble wrap.
An example of seeing our expertise in action is on a recent fulfilment campaign where a client delivered 12,000 lightweight boxes to MRM that arrived palletised in layers of 2 boxes high. We identified an immediate opportunity to reduce the client’s costs by layering the pallets 3 boxes high. As well as reducing their storage costs, without risking damage to the stock, this also reduced the subsequent number of vehicle despatches by 33%. This not only reduced the carbon footprint, but also provided substantial cost savings to the client in both storage and transportation.
We provide consultation throughout the entirety of your campaign to introduce cost savings or assistance in adapting your campaign to be more environmentally friendly.
A recent Christmas themed campaign benefited from this approach when we replaced all un-environmentally friendly packing with environmentally friendly alternatives without diluting the brand’s message and at the same time offered substantial savings. The client can now openly commit on all literature to being 100% environmentally compliant, giving them a little governmental tick, a happy end user, and peace of mind that they are contributing to a better future.
Another area of support ambitions is best practice for disposal of goods left over at the end of a campaign. Sometimes a client’s excitement for a campaign can cloud their judgement when ordering initial stock volumes. This can have a considerable, detrimental impact when items are non-recyclable and landfill may be your only option.
We have proactively researched and identified third party charitable organisations who can reuse & recycle these types of items to schools and third world countries to aid in education, learning and reduction of discrimination and abuse.
Pass it on
Our commitment doesn’t just stop at our door - part of our supplier approval process focuses specifically on the supplier’s own environmental policies to ensure that their views are in line with ours and that every effort is being made to reduce their carbon footprint as well as ours.
Need advice on reducing your carbon footprint while benefiting from cost savings? Then look no further – Call Caroline on 01858 414 761.