Innovation

Best Buy has begun their journey towards a plan they call "Best Buy 2020" under their current CEO Hubert Joly. One of the notable focuses of this plan are how Best Buy is focusing on creating a better society. Best Buy does this through creating Best Buy Tech Centers and hosting events in underserved communities to expose less fortunate youth to technology and preparing them for a potential career in the technology field.

Another aspect of what Best Buy is trying to accomplish is helping in recycling unused electronics and devices by offering customers the convenience to recycle them in each store. Steve Rzab, a general manager of a Best Buy, states that his store specifically has been replacing their bulbs in their store from less eco-friendly florescent bulbs to LED ones, as well as maximizing transportation and compact trash loads to reduce carbon emissions. Rzab also mentions that every Best Buy store is its own warehouse and ships online orders itself to minimize transportation of goods and reduce carbon emissions, and that even the Geek Mobile that Geek Squad uses has been switched out from the Volkswagen Beetle to the Prius. Another thing that Rzab mentions is that Best Buy is very conscious of what kind of products they put out on the sales floor to make sure that they offer customers energy efficient options.

Inspiration

Steve Rzab states that Best Buy "being the biggest retailer of consumer electronics gives us implicit responsibilities." He mentions that some of these responsibilities are making sure that electronics are recycled correctly as well as doing their part in reducing carbon emissions. Steve also says that the Tech Centers for youths that are provided by Best Buy are supposed to help "grow the customer" as they experience and learn about technology.

Overall impact

As stated in Best Buy's Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report of 2018, the company has already created 16 Best Buy Teen Tech Centers as well as recycling 1.7 billion pounds of electronics and appliances since 2009. Judging by this, the impact that Best Buy 2020 has had upon the environment as well as thousands of teens has been quite remarkable.

1.7 billion pounds of electronics is a colossal amount of seemingly useless junk being saved from landfills and returned to consumer use through recycling. Coupled with Best Buy's reduced carbon emissions, this means the Best Buy 2020 plan has a huge impact on the environment alone, since Best Buy is the biggest consumer electronics retailer.

The 16 Best Buy Teen Tech Centers that were started have given young people in less fortunate communities opportunities to participate in learning more about technology they would otherwise not be exposed to. Steve Rzab mentioned that "It's hard to measure the long-term effects" but the youths exposed to these programs are sometimes hired by Best Buy, and even if that's not the case they get important and potentially life changing skills and experience that might influence their career.

Business benefit

Establishing Best Buy Teen Tech Centers helps the company teach and grow their consumer, which in turn helps develop a relationship between the customer and the brand. The consumers are not only exposed to new technology that they might be interested in purchasing in the future, but also serve as a potential workforce at Best Buy.

Focusing on environmentally friendly practices such as switching to LED bulbs in stores, compacting trash, recycling electronics, along with switching out Geek Squad Beetles with Priuses, minimizing transportation of goods and using every store as it's own warehouse to cut carbon emissions, the company also manages to save money. Cost for utilities such as electricity and fuel are cut along with the decrease of carbon emissions through environmentally friendly practices.

As Steve Rzab stated, "These things give our customers more value; It makes us more than just another place to buy things."

Social and environmental benefit

Because of Best Buy's Teen Tech Centers, many young people are given certain opportunities and are exposed to technologies that they would not get to experience otherwise. They learn about a field that is rapidly expanding and has a great potential to offer them a possible career in the future.

The environment is also benefited by Best Buy's 2020 plan because the company is striving to reduce its carbon footprint on the Earth as much as possible. So far, as stated previously, Best Buy has been able to save 1.7 billion pounds of electronics and appliances from landfills and the sea, which has no doubt saved many animals and impacted our environment.

Interview

Steve Rzab, General Manager