Innovation

Coral Sea Fish and Pets LLC has thought up an innovative way to run their business so that they can be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Gina, the owner, relies on water and natural ocean reefs to survive. Gina came up with an innovative way to reduce her impact on our planet. Competitors such as Petco, PetSmart, and other small businesses like this do not focus on sustainability within their business model. However, Gina utilizes water recycling methods through purification systems that allow them to reduce their water consumption. This business also focuses on only buying from sustainable businesses that do not ravage natural ocean reefs. Instead they only purchase tank bred fish, man-made corals, and sustainable products.

This business has not only been working on its own. Gina has been in touch with all of the small businesses in the local community and has explained the need to be more sustainable. She has been able to talk about what her store is doing to reduce their impact and is asking them if she can help do the same for their small business. They also spread awareness about the threats to coral reefs and hold annual coral reef cleanups around the Jersey Shore. These coral reef cleanups are usually held once every 3 months, but during the summer they try to hold them about every 3 weeks. In addition to coral reef cleanups, Coral Sea participates in beach cleanups and fundraisers for larger scale coral reef cleanups around the globe. Furthermore, Coral Sea raises money with every sale to donate toward either water consumption, coral reef cleanup/awareness, or beach litter cleanups. With every product that is sold at Coral Sea the owners take $2 from the sale and that is put toward one of the many causes described above.

Inspiration

The inspiration behind this idea was mainly due to the fact that the owner has been around fish her entire life. From a young age, Gina had fish and fish tanks in her house. Due to this, Gina wanted to take fish and fish tanks to the next level. Gina set up a store with the idea to sell fish, aquariums, equipment, reptiles, and some other pets. After setting the store up, Gina realized how much water was being wasted when the fish tanks had to be cleaned or emptied. This made Gina think of a way to recycle the water that was used for the fish tanks in order to reduce water consumption. Gina invested a lot of time in developing a water purification system; which was used to recycle dirty water from fish tanks when fish tanks have to be emptied or cleaned.

Overall impact

Coral Sea Fish and Pets LLC is a small business that is striving to be sustainable and help the environment. They have a goal to preserve the natural ocean reefs, water and fish. This innovation pushes for a purification/recycling system that reuses the water for fish tanks instead of using tons of water constantly. Cutting down on water usage could help get water to those who are in desperate need. This will hopefully impact pet stores in a positive way making them eco-friendlier. With a few businesses starting to strive to be more sustainable and business friendly, businesses around the community will jump on board and reduce their impact on the planet.

Business benefit

The innovation for this business can be beneficial in a multitude of ways. Financially, the ability to recycle and reuse the water may seem costly at first, however, it will save money in the long run. The purification system, although seemingly expensive, will be able to cut down the water utility cost, which is always a worry when operating a pet store with a large amount of aquatic wildlife. Although, this investment will be financially beneficial for the company, it will also help the company gain a boost in reputation in a social sense. There are not a large number of small businesses that can claim that they are a sustainable business, let alone one that is having a project based on sustainability written about them. This recycling system helps use less water which allows us to preserve this precious resource. Using less water helps us preserve it for more important uses like physical consumption.

Social and environmental benefit

Coral Sea is beneficial in both social and environmental ways. Along with using the special water recycling systems for the tank water, there are a plethora of other ways Coral Sea is beneficial toward the environment. The recycling system saves on the amount of water they use, and really cuts down on the amount of wasted water constantly flowing through the tanks. This ultimately cuts down on the overall use of water and makes an impact in the world. Water reuse increases the available supply of water and enables greater human needs to be achieved with less fresh water, thus lessening mankind's impact on the world's water environment. In addition, to the water recycling systems, Coral Sea also uses water conservation practices such as efficient tank appliances and high flow filtration systems, this allows for environmentally friendly use of the tank systems and consumes less energy than traditional units. Also, Coral Sea participates in coral reef protection, and raising money for other causes. This keeps Coral Sea socially and environmentally active in society.

Interview

Gina, Owner