The Bargain! Shop : Going Green

The Bargain! Shop Cares | Going Green

The Bargain! Shop is a relative newcomer in terms of its focus on the environment, but we are now working hard to do our part and, in fact, become a true environmental leader amongst mid-sized Canadian retailers. In 2007, we formed our "Enviroaction Committee", chaired by The Bargain! Shop' CEO and actively supported by members of management from both the home office and from our stores.

We recognize that we offer a natural advantage to environmentally conscious consumers in that we are a neighbourhood retailer and thus make it possible for consumers to shop for their general merchandise needs close to where they live and work. As well, we operate stores that are dramatically smaller than "big box" general merchandise retailers and thus we produce a far lower output of greenhouse gases in each of our stores.

That said, there is a lot we at The Bargain! Shop need to do. Aside from recycling efforts in our home office, we have implemented "environmental action days". During these days we encourage our Associates to car-pool or use public transit. And our board of directors has approved a capital spending program designed to markedly reduce our use of fossil fuels, first by retrofitting our stores with new higher efficiency lighting.

As well, we are very excited about a new program, recently introduced in our stores, to reduce the use of plastic shopping bags. This program encourages our customers to help clean up their communities by bringing in their own bags or providing them with the opportunity to purchase a reusable shopping bag.

Some of the other things we have done or are planning to do in the near future include:

Encourage our buyers to source environmentally friendly merchandise
Reduce internal paper usage by increasingly relying on web-based tools for merchandise and supply orders
Introduced incentives for our store managers to reduce heating, lighting and air-conditioning usage
Educate our Associates on ways they can help ensure The Bargain! Shop reduces its carbon footprint

Clearly more needs to be done, and we are now working specifically on better measurement tools so that we can accurately set specific goals as a company and do our part to help reduce waste, resources and greenhouse gases.