2 mins
GREEN ON A BUDGET
Three low-cost sustainable switches your salon business can make easily today
What is your salon or business doing to tackle climate change? As hairdressers, we use huge amounts of energy and produce large amounts of waste – in fact, UK salons alone produce roughly the same volume of carbon emissions as a small country.
But it’s not too late to change. We have the power to alter both our ways of working and the choices of others, to help protect the future of our planet.
Anne Veck and Keith Mellen – Directors at Anne Veck Oxford and newly-crowned winners of Sustainable Salon of the Year at HJ’s British Hairdressing Business Awards – are paving the way for salons and stylists to seek out eco-alternatives, thanks to their innovative Salon RE:Source, a free, downloadable ‘toolkit’. Packed with practical and informative suggestions for salon owners wanting to make sustainable switches, here are three low-cost tips that you can implement today, to start making a difference…
1 GO PAPERLESS!
Printed price lists are unnecessary – plus it’s much easier to change your prices if your list is digital only. Create a PDF version which clients can view or download on your website or app – you can even offer to airdrop it to their device! Gift vouchers, loyalty cards, appointment cards and the like can all be done better (and cheaper) digitally. If you have existing stocks of these, use them up –then make the switch to digital. And if you really can’t bear to say goodbye to a ‘physical’ version, avoid lamination, coating and binding, which all reduce the recyclability of the paper. Look at eco-alternatives for your loo paper too, choosing a recyclable/ recycled or bamboo version. Brands including Who Gives A Crap, Cheeky Panda and Naked Sprout are all worth looking at.
2 REDUCE WASTE!
It sounds obvious but we can all improve on the amount of waste we generate.Try recording how much colour you dispose of daily by collecting it in a bucket. Keep a tally and aim to reduce the amount, weekly. Work towards zero colour waste and help reduce costs as a result.There are apps available to help, including VISH or Smartmix by Precision Colour Ltd.
Sort your waste responsibly, as required by your local collection service but also look at alternative collection services including Green Salon Collective, Salon Sustainability and First Mile. Green Salon Collective suggests a ‘green fee’, a £1 charge added to a client’s bill to offset the costs you incur for using their pay-as-you-go services, in order for it to become cost-neutral.You can then collect everything from hair clippings and used foil to empty colour tubes, towels and chemicals in designated bins, before arranging a collection.
3 SWITCH OFF!
Don’t block your windows – use as much natural light as possible and switch to LED bulbs, which give brilliant light quality and can last for up to ten years. Only turn on lights in areas that you are using and if necessary, label the switches to identify which areas they control. Motion-activated lighting can be useful in less busy areas, such as customer toilets. Switch off tools and equipment at the mains when not in use and always overnight (or when the salon is closed). Don’t forget to have your electrical equipment PAT tested each year – not only for safety but also for efficiency – and check that your white goods have top A-ratings.