A Covid19 lesson: Our behaviors can change overnight, and for the sake of our planet, they have to.
The year 2020 began with all eyes on sustainability with the Greta Thunberg Phenomenon, the awareness created by the wildfires in Australia, the World Economic Forum in Davos themed as “Stakeholders for a cohesive and sustainable world,” and the commitment to sustainable investing from market makers like the Blackstone Group Inc. Then, Covid19 pandemic happened.
Covid19 will be remembered as one of the most important historic events in our generation either Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and/or Gen Z. The social and economic impacts of Covid19 are still “work in progress” and expectations are not very promising. Although, there is something positive to rescue from this unique experience and it is that the pandemic has paved the way to sustainability by teaching us that a change of behavior is possible when necessary.
Covid19 is reinforcing the need for sustainable living as the lack of total harmony with the environment was the main cause of this pandemic. On the other hand, this pandemic gave us the opportunity to demonstrate that humans can change behaviors that many of us thought would be impossible to change. Not only that, we did manage to change these behaviors overnight, exactly what we need to do for our planet to make it more sustainable. We need to change some behaviors immediately.
One of the paradigms that we were obligated to revisit early on the pandemic was that of “Fast free shipping” better known now as one-day free shipping. Amazon Prime members went from ordering any ordinary purchase one or two days in advance, to planning well in advance since deliveries were taking weeks to arrive. Considering that fast free shipping takes a huge toll on the environment and makes products more expensive, why not just keep ordering our products in advance? The clock is ticking and our planet demands immediate climate action. Changing shopping habits helps not only our planet, but also consumers and brands pockets as we will do things more efficiently. It is a change that demands some minor adjustments from us and we have a monetary incentive to do it.
Our planet can afford nothing but the most efficient way to do anything. With Covid19 accelerating the transition from offline to online commerce, it has become absolutely crucial for us to review the way e-commerce is operating. As inconvenient as it may sound, our planet needs us to reduce fast free shipping to cases in which it is strictly necessary. This sounds crazy especially with all the success Amazon and its e-commerce competitors are having, but this change needs to happen for the sake of the environment. Now that more than 120 million Americans are willing to change shopping habits to help the environment, e-commerce will begin moving towards Direct to Consumer with a zero-inventory approach. This will not only help the planet, but also give socially conscious brands a unique opportunity to make more money and make their eco-friendly products more affordable to shoppers. If you want to enhance your brand’s corporate social responsibility, look for mandatum at www.mandatum.co. Check out our Sustainable D2C™, a business model that maximizes the potential of online shopping and Direct to Consumer economics to operate markets sustainably in the most efficient way helping brands’ finances and consumers’ pockets.
The great news is that COVID19 has helped us realize that changing our behaviors is not only possible, but also that it can be done overnight. Thus, if there is a more efficient way to solve a problem, we must change and strive towards that solution. It is the only alternative our planet can afford right now.
