5 Easy Ways to Make Your Store Eco Friendly

 Everyone wants to do their bit to help save the planet, right? The problem is that becoming eco friendly can look a bit daunting, especially if you’re managing a small business. How exactly can you make an impact? With so many sustainable options out there, it can be hard to know where to start. 

Don’t be put off though – it’s definitely worth the effort. Becoming an eco friendly brand isn’t just good for the environment, it’s also good for business. There’s now a ton of research that shows that sustainability is increasingly important to consumers. 

Take Unilever’s Sustainable Living Brands as an example, which are growing 69% faster than the rest of the business. Then there’s the performance of B Corps, a group of businesses that are certified for their environmental performance. B Corps in the UK grew an astonishing 28 times faster than other businesses. But it’s not just about growth – data shows that people are also prepared to pay a premium for environmentally friendly products. 

But being an eco friendly brand isn’t just about selling green products. People now expect the brands they choose to have sustainable practices too. Green consumers want to know that you’re a brand that is working with them to help the world. Talking about sustainability and incorporating green initiatives into your store is a great way to bond with your customers and inject a feel-good factor into the purchase process. 

Luckily, it’s never been easier to make your business greener by integrating sustainable practices into your store. Here’s how: 

1. Find your focus 

There are so many ways to push for a greener world, whether it’s planting trees, growing corals, offsetting carbon, cleaning the seas of plastic, or supporting the biodiversity of habitats. Find a cause that matches your business and focus on the impact that you can have within that area. That way you’ll stay motivated and be able to talk authentically about what you’re doing and why. 

2. Use green tech plugins

It’s never been easier for small businesses to sell online thanks to platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. Thankfully there are also a host of new ways to integrate sustainability into your ecommerce approach. From charity checkouts to donation apps, it’s possible to show your customers how you are taking action with quick and easy-to-use donation plugins. Handprint allows you to add purpose to your sales with a simple download. Fancy planting a tree for every purchase your customers make? Handprint curates the entire project, allowing you to integrate the plugin into your site and connect your donations to the relevant project in a few clicks.  

3. Showcase your impact

The best thing about becoming an eco friendly brand? Seeing the positive impact your actions can have. You want to be able to celebrate your successes with your customers, so don’t forget to show what you’ve achieved together. Creating a sustainability page on your website is a great way of displaying your results. It’s easy to integrate real-time metrics into this page to show the area you have reforested or carbon that you’ve helped absorb. Being able to point to the positive work you’re doing will also help create a conversation with your buyers and build up your brand loyalty.  

4. Engage your customers in the journey 

As a small business, you have a valuable voice. Think about how you can share what you’re doing beyond your charity checkout or donation plugin to inspire people to go green. Whether that’s on your social media channels or website, take your customers on your sustainability journey so they can learn about the steps you’re taking. 

5. Partner with eco friendly brands 

We’re all in this together. And guess what – that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with being an eco friendly brand is magnified when you partner with like-minded people. Look out for green brands who may be working on similar causes and connect with them. Building a community can be a great way of finding out the hottest sustainability tips or new ways of improving your processes. There’s also the added bonus of being able to connect with a wider group of green consumers too. 

Are you interested in integrating Handprint into your Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento store? Let’s do this! Find out more here. 

Do you have an ecommerce store that uses a different technology? Reach out and find out how to use Handprint’s APIs.