How Are You Covering Your Sustainability Costs?

Attitudes towards charging a “Green Fee” are being assessed this month in a new study organized by Sustain Beauty Co. Thousands of salons and stylists will be asked how business owners are charging for initiatives that help them become more sustainable, such as specialist waste removal, along with how much they are charging and how they feel about the concept.

Increasingly, salons are adding a surcharge many call a ‘green fee’ to their service ticket to help fund services and upgrades that help them become more sustainable as a business.Courtesy of Sustain Beauty CoIncreasingly, salons are adding a surcharge many call a ‘green fee’ to their service ticket to help fund services and upgrades that help them become more sustainable as a business, but amounts vary enormously and cover a wide range of initiatives. The survey hopes to drill into the variances, find out whether attitudes are sympathetic or cynical and also share with the industry what their peers are charging in their area.

“The green fee has been around for a while, gaining popularity in response to new waste management programs becoming available for hard to recycle items like hair color and foils. The trouble is that it’s still new and salons are nervous about adding new fees when prices are up across the board,” says Valorie Tate, founder of Sustain Beauty Co and author of the study. “It’s our intention to collect the information and make it available to the beauty community to help them make informed decisions.”

Earlier this year, SBCo published its annual Sustainability in the Beauty Industry survey, which was filled in by record numbers of professionals and owners. The company hopes this micro study focused on the green fee will return equally beneficial data.

“One of the biggest negative impacts beauty has on our environment is waste disposal, with the industry pouring millions of lbs of chemicals into the water system every year, along with other waste mountains like aluminum foil, hair, gloves and plastics. Salons must turn to specialist recyclers for these hard to recycle or repurpose items as local municipalities aren’t all able to offer such services,” adds Valorie. “All services, including local services, cost money, so how are businesses covering these costs? We want to share some collective wisdom on the subject.”

SBCo is keen for as many salons as possible, including those that do not charge a green fee, to complete the survey and so capture a wide picture of industry attitudes. 

What to expect: 

• Six questions total
• Estimated time to completion is two minutes
• Entries are completely anonymous

There is an option to leave your name and contact email if you’d like to get a copy of the results.