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Challenging the Perception of Waste Alan Cooper | Founder and Communications Director of Waste to Wonder
Attention all business owners and accountants.
definitely not least, marketing, advertising, social media, promotion, public relations and sales. It’s a lot to think about.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) relocated from Canary Wharf to their new HQ in Stratford, London, and saved £28,479.00 in recycling charges - and, through Waste to Wonder were able to redistribute £563,170.00 fair market value of office furniture and equipment to charities and schools worldwide.
Before I go on any more let me share just one piece of good business practice that if embraced by your clients, and embraced with genuine intent can provide a business ROI to rival any of the tactical impacts just mentioned and, in many cases, doesn’t cost a penny. A panacea for all those tactical headaches you might say.
How? By challenging the perception of waste. For the pure mathematicians among you that equated to 903 tonnes of carbon retained and not released through recycling.
To fully understand this ROI, this elixir of good business practice, we need to consider one thing about business branding and one thing about the digital world of social media; the world in which business now lives.
A similar, smaller customer, in December 2020 also saved themselves substantial recycling charges in excess of £10,000 and redistributed £124,700 of office furniture and equipment. Parking the two examples above for a moment, let’s consider another scenario below, where waste becomes a company’s most valuable branding tool. Worth £000s? You decide. This company wants to enter an emerging market and launch a new or existing service/product either in the UK or internationally. Here is a brief synopsis of what they will need to do assuming that their strategy has been predicated by thorough market research of some sort, such as trend or demand, demographics, gender, propensity to buy and so on. Considerations will be gearing up resource, production, materials, recruitment, premises, finance, financial gearing, cash flow, legalities, and accountancy to name but a few. Then last but
Brand is driven by association, now I know all the Brand Managers out there will rush to justify huge salaries with a plethora of university degree reasons why it’s much more complicated than that but it’s really not, it’s really that simple. Examples being association with reliability, association with youth or age, association with value for money or quality, of taste, of desirability even association with celebrity sometimes works in business and sometimes not! Building good business brand has always been perceived as long term however in the new world of social media, a good or bad brand can catapult a company as quickly forwards as it can backwards with breakneck speed and that’s the truth. Both things now explained, let’s go back to the company who wants to launch its service/product but this time add into their arsenal the magic ROI ingredient. In all probability it is already sitting under their very noses.
