How To Make Sure Your Business Is Shipping Sustainably

Julie Starr • January 17, 2022



Online sales were on a growth path long before COVID19 struck the world down. After seeing the effects of the pandemic, businesses have even more reason to develop a strong online presence . For many businesses, that is going to mean shipping physical goods to customers. With that in mind, here are six tips on how to make sure that your shipping is sustainable.

Minimize customer returns

Customer returns are a huge issue for online retailers. Getting to grips with them will improve your margins as well as make you more sustainable. The good news is that getting to grips with returns is more about thoroughness and attention to detail than it is about your budget.

What you need to understand is that the majority of customers who return goods do so because the goods didn’t meet their expectations. There is a very small percentage of customers who use the returns system as a way to scam retailers. If, however, you’re running effective anti-fraud measures you should be able to catch most if not all of these.

Stopping customers from making genuine returns essentially boils down to making sure that they have all the information they need to make an informed decision before they buy. More specifically, it means ensuring that they have that information at their fingertips rather than having to search for it.

In general, the easiest way to achieve this is to implement a chatbot system. That way, you can keep your web pages clean and attractive but still give customers all the information they need. Additionally, it’s a good idea to provide lots of photos and/or videos. In some cases, you might even want to create an app to allow customers to visualize the product in their real life.

Keep on top of your inventory

Keeping on top of your inventory will minimize your chances of having to send goods by air to compensate for delays in getting new stock. It will also minimize your chances of having goods returned purely because they arrived too late.

Prior to COVID19, it was fairly common practice for businesses to operate just-in-time shipping processes. They also tended to ship from central distribution hubs, often in China. Before the pandemic, these tended to work fairly well most of the time. Even then, however, there were noticeable problems with the system.

Post COVID19 it could be well worth considering having a bank of inventory to protect you against shipping delays. If you routinely ship internationally, it could also be worth considering keeping stock in hubs near your main customer bases. You could have a partner ship them out to your end customers from there.

This approach is often a win for customer service as well as sustainability. It means that goods can be transported most of the way using slower transport options. They can then go to the last leg by air if necessary. If, however, the goods are closer to the customers, you may be able to make more frequent use of slower and more sustainable transport options.

Take packaging seriously

If you’re packaging your own products then make a commitment to review your packaging on a regular basis. That means at least once a year. This will allow you to adapt your packaging quickly to reflect the changes that inevitably come with time.  

For example, people may discover more sustainable ways of packing either using new materials or using existing materials in a new way. Alternatively, stakeholders such as governments may update rules/taxes relating to the use of packaging materials. These changes generally favor more sustainable options.

Both developments in packaging and regulatory changes tend to be flagged well in advance of going mainstream/being implemented. It’s therefore highly advisable to pay attention to relevant news sources so you always stay on top of the latest news and can respond quickly.

No matter what packaging you use, err on the side of excess when it comes to protective materials. Slightly overpacking an item is less of a sustainability hazard than slightly underpacking it. This is because it minimizes the chances of the goods being damaged and hence being returned and/or discarded.

Make sure you know shipping rules

 

If you break shipping rules, even by accident, then you’re setting yourself up for trouble. You may get away with it on the odd occasion but the chances are you won’t. This is particularly true if you’re sending goods by air.  

The aviation industry takes customer security extremely seriously. This means that air cargo is scanned very thoroughly before it gets put on the plane. If there is anything wrong at all, the package will generally be either held or returned. Generally, it will be held if there is an issue with documentation and returned if the package cannot be transported for some other reason.

Both holds and returns are an inconvenience. From a sustainability perspective, returns are far worse. As with customer returns, they are a largely avoidable drain on resources, including and especially carbon.

Have a robust shipping process

You need a documented shipping process to ensure that everyone gets everything they ordered sent where they want it sent with minimal delay. This process should cover literally every step in the order-dispatch process. That includes prior actions such as ordering packaging, and the kind of shipping containers your logistics partner is able to provide..

An effective shipping process will allow you to use the most sustainable and cost-effective methods for sending your items. For example, it will allow you to see when it’s better to send items in one package and when it’s better to send items in multiple packages.

It will eliminate the need to send items separately purely because the packer forgot (or didn’t know) to add them to the main order. It can also help to minimize returns since it should eliminate issues with goods arriving after they are needed.

Proactively manage your customers’ behavior

Try to encourage your customers to use more sustainable shipping options whenever possible. For example, offer free shipping by land and sea but charge a premium for air. You might also want to consider implementing a reward scheme and offering extra points for choosing more sustainable shipping options.

Smart Sensors, Smarter Supply Chains: Enhancing Traceability in Food & Beverage

By Julie Starr • June 20, 2025
In today’s competitive food and beverage (F&B) landscape, traceability is no longer a compliance checkbox—it’s a differentiator. The ability to track every step of a product’s journey, from origin to shelf, is vital for regulatory accuracy and to ensure brand integrity, supply chain agility, and consumer trust. Add smart sensors to the mix: the quiet, tireless observers revolutionizing supply chain intelligence. Traceability Has a Data Problem Despite digitization across many F&B operations, most traceability systems still rely on fragmented or manual data inputs. Batch numbers, barcodes, and handwritten logs often stand between a supplier and clarity when things go wrong. This approach struggles with latency and scale. When contamination or delays occur, root cause analysis is slow, costly, and damaging. Smart sensors shift this paradigm by embedding real-time, contextual intelligence into every stage of the supply chain . Whether monitoring humidity in transit or recording fill-level precision in bottling plants, they remove the guesswork by turning physical conditions into structured, time-stamped data. From Passive Monitoring to Active Optimization Sensors used to be reactive tools, alerting operators to anomalies. But smart sensors now play a proactive role in process control. They measure, and they interpret. For example, temperature sensors embedded in cold chain logistics can dynamically adjust cooling systems or flag threshold breaches before spoilage occurs. These advancements reduce waste and loss at a systemic level. In a production facility, smart sensors integrated with PLCs can enforce recipe compliance, verify clean-in-place processes, and detect micro-stoppages in real-time. This enables operations to pivot faster and isolate inefficiencies before they cascade downstream. Trust is Built on Transparency Consumers are paying more attention to what they eat and drink. They’re looking beyond labels, expecting visibility into how ingredients are sourced, processed, and handled. Smart sensors make this level of transparency achievable —without burdening manufacturers with excessive manual oversight. By capturing metadata throughout production and distribution, these sensors create a digital footprint that’s tamper-resistant and instantly accessible. When this data is integrated with a central platform, brands can respond confidently to audits, recalls, and quality assurance challenges with a level of precision that would be impossible through legacy systems. Intelligence Without Infrastructure Overhaul One common misconception is that adding smart sensors requires a top-down reinvention of supply chain infrastructure. In reality, companies can deploy edge sensors in a modular, scalable way. Many modern solutions offer plug-and-play functionality, allowing for fast integration with existing machinery and MES systems. This is where suppliers like alps-machine.com are reshaping expectations. Rather than pushing proprietary ecosystems, they design sensor-ready equipment with interoperability in mind. This future-proofs investment and keeps businesses nimble in the face of regulatory or market shifts. Designing for Data Longevity Sensors are only as powerful as the context they capture. A smart implementation ensures the data collected can be standardized, stored securely, and accessed meaningfully across departments. This means moving beyond local dashboards toward centralized, queryable datasets that inform everything from supplier contracts to marketing claims. As AI and predictive analytics become more accessible, these data-rich environments will unlock new capabilities—such as predicting demand spikes based on real-time freshness indicators or adjusting production schedules dynamically based on in-transit sensor feedback. Final Thoughts: Smarter Isn’t Optional Traceability isn’t solved by more paperwork—it’s solved by embedded intelligence. Smart sensors don’t just help businesses know what happened; they help prevent the wrong things from happening at all. For companies in the food and beverage sector, adopting smart sensors is less about chasing innovation and more about enabling resilience, speed, and confidence in every decision.

Eco-Friendly Garden Prep: Summer Tips for a Greener Business Space

By Julie Starr • June 5, 2025
If you're lucky enough to have a garden as part of your business, taking some time to set it up for summer is a great investment of your energy. Not only will it be ready for your customers to spend time in, but you can also incorporate some eco-friendly elements into it. Many people just think about the property and what eco-friendly updates they can make , but there are plenty that you can implement in your garden. This gives you the best of both worlds. You own a sacred and beautiful place for your customers to spend their summer, and at the same time, you can do your part for a better planet. If this is the route you want to take, then you also need to consider how to do this with the different seasons. To help you on your journey, here are some top tips for preparing your garden for summer. Plant trees and flowers Planting trees and flowers in your garden is a must. It will make a beautiful scene of nature for everyone to enjoy. Trees will provide people and animals with shade, as well as provide a habitat for wildlife. More trees are needed in the world because they purify the air that we breathe. Flowers, especially if you plant with pollinators in mind, can be an excellent way to attract bees and butterflies, which contribute largely to the earth. Use natural pest control When preparing your garden for summer, you can do this more sustainably and kindly by using natural pest control. Simply by planting trees and flowers, you are likely to attract lots of different wildlife, some of which may destroy your efforts. While all wildlife should be considered, you may need to take measures. Some better and more eco-friendly ways you can do this, as opposed to spraying toxic chemicals onto your plants and into the air, you can implement companion planting, using protective nets over your crops, choosing resilient plants, using natural repellents, and encouraging natural predators so nature can do its thing. Maintain your garden Maintaining your garden in itself can make it more eco-friendly. Composting your garden waste regularly, and kitchen waste can help you to reduce overall waste and create nutrient-rich soil. This is a great cycle of sustainability. You can also keep on top of things that need cleaning and replacing, so you can recycle the materials for other garden structures and projects, and repurpose things around your garden before they become waste. If you have features in your garden like a swimming pool, then a regular pool maintenance service is going to be vital in keeping your water consumption to a minimum, as when it is cleaned and maintained, it will need to be drained and refilled less as well as using less energy. You could also consider how you can use natural purification methods to reduce chemical usage and support biodiversity right in your backyard. Your garden is just an eco-friendly project waiting to be built. Use these top tips to help you get started.