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Can you lose clients by not being green?
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I'd like to share with you a recent experience I had on United Airlines. This message really sends it home that you never know when being environmentally irresponsible or lackadaisical can lose you a customer.
If you are someone who cares about the environment and going green you should not fly United. Recently I was traveling from New York City to Chicago. As I was stepping onto the plane I was handed a postcard like item by the captain. The note card had a description of the 757 aircraft. It mentioned the wingspan, the size, the weight, maximum speed etc. Quite frankly, a bunch of useless facts that I highly doubt anyone cares about. Toward the end of the flight, someone announced over the PA system that we should all look at the card we received when we boarded to see if we were the lucky person to have the card with the captain's signature on it. If you were two of the lucky winners then ring your call button so the flight attendant could give you a bottle of wine.
Now, my first problem with this is that there were these note cards were all over the plane. They were on the floor, on seats, in the trash, so clearly no one cared about the facts of the plane on which we were flying. What a waste, and I mean that literally. What a waste of paper that is going to pollute the earth and add to the already overflowing landfills and global warming.
My second problem is with the thousands of dollars United Airlines had to have spent to produce these cards and then give away a bottle of wine. Is that what the $15 bag check fee is for? I personally don’t like that I have to pay $300 for a plane ticket and then pay another $15 each way to check my bag so that United can print useless cards and help to destroy our planet.
My last problem was with the flight attendant. I rang my call button to ask if these cards were being passed out on every United flight. She said the cards were given to the captain, and they could pass them out if they chose to. I replied that I wanted her to know that I found it to be environmentally irresponsible for a company to pass out cards that are clearly going to go to waste and continue to pollute the Earth. She answered me with “Well ma’am, some people just don’t care about that.” Well I have to take from that comment that she meant that United doesn’t care about that because United is who chose to create this waste. If they wanted to give away a bottle of wine why didn’t they just hand a random person a bottle of wine? They didn’t need to print up God knows how many hundreds of thousands of note cards that will be thrown away and add to our already environmentally troubled planet.
The point here is, being unaware or uncaring of the environment can cost you a customer. If enough customers take that stand you adventually won't have a business. So be wise when running your business and be aware of the world around you (literally).
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