Saving the World on a Budget

When David Schwimmer dresses as an environmentalist superhero for prime time television, you know it has to be a big thing. Greenzo only further proves that the green movement is here and it’s gaining momentum.

We’ve all read about the green initiatives of the retail industry’s larger players, but what about the smaller stores that may not have the budget to take on the initial costs of some of the same environmentally-friendly projects?

Turns out I wasn’t the only one around the office wondering this. Our very own Celia Josh-Sawicki wrote “Save the World on a Budget,” an article full of cost-effective green activities that has been featured on the VM+SD website. The article focuses on smart retail fixture and display design, production, maintenance, and disposal initiatives, and here are a few of my faves:

• Avoid the harsh chemicals of some cleaning products and use mild cleansers instead.

• Reduce the amount of material wasted with careful display and fixture planning.

• Don’t scrap old displays. Give them facelifts instead.

• Earn money and good karma by selling or donating unwanted displays and décor pieces.

• Use recyclable and recycled materials whenever possible. It’s ridiculous what suppliers are creating from our leftovers.

Check out the article for more ways to be green without spending all of your green. And for those of you who missed out on David Schwimmer in a cape, you can catch last week’s episode of 30 Rock on the show’s website.

Did you recently do something green in your store? Have other cost-effective green ideas? We'd love to hear about them.