Innovation

The Founder and CEO, Shane Price, is the driving force behind Green Circle Salons with its 36 employees in six facilities across North America. Shane makes sure that the company operates within the boundaries of a triple-bottom company, considering people, planet, and profit in all decisions that are made. “Our mission is to make sure that all salons in North America have the ability to be sustainable, to have the choice to join our movement for sustainability in the beauty industry."

Green Circle Salons brings innovation to the salon industry by improving the disposal process of used materials and re-purposing those materials towards helping the environment. "What Green Circles did is we innovated a way to manage those specific waste streams that don’t have anyone managing them in a sustainable way. We are pioneers in waste management in the beauty salon industry." A big reason why salons have joined this movement is because they didn’t have solutions to deal with the large quantities of waste that is produced inside the salons. "The hair salon industry is typically left to fend with the difficult-to-manage type of waste that it generates and so it ends up in the landfill." With the help of Green Circle Salons, it is possible to further the cause of promoting awareness of environmental concerns and greener thinking to the public.

Inspiration

Shane was talking to his stylist in the salon that he visited on a regular basis, asking them 'What do you guys do with the hair?'. This question was what created the platform of a pathway towards sustainability for salons. “It spurred on a lot of research and inquisitions into ‘What can be done with this waste?’, ‘What is it capable of?', 'What benefits can it have?', 'What can we do with this that actually benefits the planet rather than just keeping another one to dispose?'. It was the recognition that salons are limited in the amount of solutions that they had available to them. It was choosing a green product line, which was a really great first choice to start the mission of having a greener salon, but it’s not even close to enough. There are new challenges all the time that come our way. So, all of the things in the hair dressing industry that happens are often times reasons for us to go back to that innovation stage of providing this pathway that we promised to salons. It’s ever changing, it’s constant, and it grows and changes within our industry."

Overall impact

The innovation of "Going Green" is the business behind Green Circle Salons. Green Circle Salons has the ability to catch the interest of green-minded clients and increase awareness to other stylists. “Once they realize how much waste that they have been previously throwing in the landfills and down the waterways, they are immediately more aware of every single action they have in the salons." The short-term effects are a reduction in expenditures and excess waste from the salons due to purchasing too much of product materials such as hair color. The long-term effects are a reduction in the effects of the carbon-footprint on the environment and also a reduction in electricity and water expenditures for the salons. "1400 salons have joined the Green Circles program (each diverting 95% of their waste from landfills and waterways), effectively accomplishing total waste diversion of 2.1 million lbs recycled or re-purposed since 2009."

Business benefit

The business immediately benefits from the innovation because the program builds revenue and helps lower unnecessary waste expenditures for their salons. Each Green Circle Salon's guest is charged with an Environmental Stewardship Fee (ESF), which a small portion stays with each salon to help with necessary expenditures to improve operations, to attract green-minded clients, and to gradually increase loyalty among them. The business continues to thrive by getting the word out that going green in the salon industry is the new alternative and that salons need to become efficient and environment-friendly at the same time.

Social and environmental benefit

By reducing the carbon footprint, living conditions in our environment will improve. Cleaner air can be the result of reducing waste and the release of methane from such waste. Cleaner water is possible through these operations because instead of dumping waste into the waterways, they can be collected and re-purposed for other societal needs. Cleaner soil can be achieved through reducing waste accumulation in landfills and converting hair waste into other helpful materials such as compost.

Interview

Jennifer Henry, Director, Global Brand Strategy