Eric Block On Responsible Branding

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By Noel Asmar, Forbes Councils Member via Forbes • Reposted: February 2, 2024 

Noel Asmar is the Founder and Creative Director of Noel Asmar Group of Companies, which services spa, healthcare, hospitality & equestrian.

The last decade has brought a seismic shift in public awareness around the climate crisis we face. Consumers are increasingly demanding businesses become more accountable, but often, the path to building a sustainable business is far from convenient. If I’ve learned one thing working in busy industries like spa, hospitality and healthcare, it’s for meaningful change to happen, solutions have to be simplified.

As we enter 2024, here are three steps any leader can take to lessen their company’s environmental footprint, regardless of their organization’s size or resources:

Gather data on your operations.

When it comes to measuring your environmental impact as a business, the simplest way to get started is to collect data on your operations. Start by taking stock of what your business purchases and disposes of both in quantity and nature, then assess what end-of-life options you have.

Often when businesses make purchasing decisions, we’re focused on aesthetic or performance—while those qualities are important, considering whether or not a product can be easily upcycled, recycled or degraded in the landfill is one of the most effective ways to lessen your environmental impact.

For example, in our business certain polyester fabrics can be used to make insulation for homes. By talking to your manufacturers and suppliers, you can become more educated on the circularity of your products.

The average small business spends $40K annually and product costs are largely a business’s greatest expense. Fortune 500s, on the other hand, can easily exceed $100 billion in annual spending. When we start to gather concrete data and calculate our environmental impact into our purchasing decisions, we can create a ripple effect that benefits all stakeholders.

Invest in quality upfront.

What set our company apart from competitors when we first entered the market in 2002 was our unwavering focus on quality. For our uniforms, we intentionally selected commercial-grade fabrics that withstood heavy washing, were fade-resistant and repelled materials like oil, which practitioners came into regular contact with. This decision was controversial because it set our price point higher than the industry norm.

Investing in high-quality products may throw off the balance sheet for businesses initially, but the long-term economic benefits often outweigh the short-term strain on budgets.

For example during the economic downturn between ’09 and ’11, many hotel properties were forced to cut spending. During this time, I recall getting a call from the spa director of a major resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. He mentioned how grateful he was that the property had invested in our uniforms; while their competitors were struggling to replace faded and damaged uniforms monthly, their staff was still well clad in uniforms that had maintained their color and condition.

Investing in quality upfront, isn’t just an economic play, it also greatly reduces the amount of waste businesses contribute to the landfill. According to the UN, consumers purchase 60% more clothing now than we did 15 years ago, and each item is kept only half as long.

This “throw away” mentality is the reason 134 million tonnes of textiles are expected to be discarded annually by 2030. Considering nearly 85% of all textiles thrown away in the U.S. end up in the landfill or burned, reducing how often your business has to replace goods is a win for the environment and your bottom line.

Find like-minded partners.

One of the greatest challenges businesses face when it comes to responsibly disposing of their waste is navigating logistics. Becoming a sustainable business is highly interdependent on the systems around us. Often recycling requirements are complex and businesses don’t have the resources to fulfill them. For this reason, establishing cross-beneficial partnerships can make a big difference.

A few years ago, my company started a sustainability initiative in an effort to break down the barriers spas and hotels were facing in responsibly disposing of their textiles. In doing so, it became clear recycling stations wanted products to be perfectly segregated down to the yarn, and the big ones had minimum volume requirements. These specific requirements weren’t realistic for spas and hotels because they disrupted the flow of operations, acting as a barrier to doing the right thing.

So we started to explore partnerships in the areas we serviced. We teamed up with a like-minded waste management company and carved out a solution that allowed us to utilize their recycling factories for our spa and hotel partners in the U.S., regardless of their volume.

When you use sustainability as a lens to filter partnerships, you’d be surprised at what becomes possible. For us, it’s even resulted in working with fabric mills to create products from recycled water bottles that naturally degrade if our uniforms do end up in the landfill.

The journey toward sustainability is not without challenge, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By getting a clear picture of your company’s footprint, considering end-of-life strategies and partnering with like-minded suppliers, it is possible to implement practical solutions that are both accessible and scalable. Real change takes time, but there’s never a better time to start than right now.

To see the original post, follow this link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2024/01/31/three-sustainability-strategies-even-the-busiest-ceo-can-commit-to/?sh=7189c4d44184