The sense and nonsense of saving paper...

Minimise waste, not greenwashing!

We are, of course, fully committed to protecting the environment – not least because we’re a shop specialising in natural products!

That’s why, a few weeks ago, we introduced the option to tick a box if you’d like paperless delivery – that is, without an invoice or advertising.

The result was that around 90 per cent of customers want this!

That’s great news, but it’s also caused some problems: we have to include something in the parcels to document the contents, for example, in case the DHL label gets damaged. It’s also necessary for day-to-day operations – for example, when I print out a stack of orders for my colleague to pack, she needs to know which customer is getting which items.

So I printed out a delivery note for that purpose. The very same sheet of paper I would otherwise have used for the invoice. And given that the invoice carries much greater legal weight, this is a completely nonsensical process!

This is also known as ‘greenwashing’ – pretending to be environmentally friendly when, in fact, you’re not. Which, of course, we want to avoid.

That’s why we’re changing our approach again, so that 1. the impact on the environment is kept to a minimum and 2. if we do have to use paper, it’s at least done sensibly and thoughtfully.

• From now on, we’ll include an invoice again, but no longer a delivery note, except in rare cases involving complicated orders. If a sheet of paper is necessary for legal and organisational reasons, then at least let it be the most sensible option!

This makes more sense and saves all customers from having to read and tick yet another annoying checkout box; what’s more, it still reduces the amount of advertising by a few per cent compared to before!