On November 7, SALON TODAY partnered with Green Circle Salons to offer a complimentary webinar on a critical topic for our times—how becoming an environmentally sustainable salon not only can help owners and their team members do their part to help the planet, but how being sustainable also can help you stand out in your market, attract new green-minded clients and help you recruit and retain talent who feels it’s important to work with a salon that aligns with their values.

During the webinar, Shane Price, the founder and CEO of Green Circle Salons and three of the company’s Waste Warriors—Katie Dalager, the marketing and HR director for HAUS Salons; Larry Kane, the president and owner of Jonathan Kane Salon & Spa; and Shannon King, the owner and educational director for Hair & Co. BKLYN—joined SALON TODAY’s Stacey Soble in an enlightening, yet encouraging, conversation about the power of embracing sustainability.

(Did you miss out on the live webinar? No worries, you can catch it on demand.)

Here's a little taste of the webinar:

On becoming a sustainable salon:

Katie Dalager: “Becoming a sustainable salon felt like such a such a no-brainer for us. It allowed us to take what we really cared about and put it into practice each day. We joined Green Circle Salons in 2021, and we are really proud to say that last year we diverted more than 5,000 pounds of waste that we made sure didn’t end up in landfills. In addition to that, for us it’s about finding different product lines that are also sustainable and that offer clean ingredients, recyclable packaging and embrace values that align with ours.”

Shannon King: “I used to be that guy who would just throw stuff out wherever and it was horrible, but now I’m that guy who goes through Brooklyn, New York, and picks things up and puts them in the right bins. Honestly, I had to do this for my daughter. I’m a girl Dad, 100 percent to the heart and the bone, and I need her to have a beautiful world to be in, and what better way than to have all of the members of our team contribute to that. When I saw the numbers--that salons produce 877 pounds of waste a minute, almost 421,000 pounds a day--that’s crazy to me. We shouldn’t be doing that. So here in Brooklyn, we’re going to make sure we hold it down and keep it green.”

Larry Kane: “As far back as ten years ago, we were doing waste audits in our salon—I had bins in the basement and every day I’d go through the garbage and separate it all just so we could try to reduce the amount of waste that went to the dumpster. And we really pushed our local recycling companies to make sure we had everything we could in the recycle bins. Unfortunately, they were pretty much a carnage company, so when Green Circle came along, it fit our vision perfectly.”

On Green Circle Salons and how it helps salons and spas become more sustainable…

Shane Price: “Shannon already talked about something really important and it’s the number that is percolating up for our industry and it’s the 877 pounds of waste that Canadian and U.S. salons are sending to the landfill every single minute—it’s about half a million pounds every day. What’s tragic about that, is that 95% of that material can be recycled and we can reclaim the value, and it can back go back into our economy. What gets Green Circlers up out of bed in the morning is this passion to go solve against that big juicy problem of 877 pounds, and we want to get that down to zero. So, we built an entire business model around solving the beauty industry’s waste channels. So, we’ve done this by going out and speaking to salon owners, to salon staff, to guests and other community stakeholders to get a sense of what do we need to do to win in this fight for net-positive as an industry. What do we need to do so all of the stakeholders can also win. As a result of that research we created a very simple system that allows salons to do many things at one time, to be green by diverting or recycling waste, to build revenue to help fund sustainable change in the business and to gain new clients by channeling the green-minded consumer into salons that are helping and not hurting the planet. What excites us most is Green Circle Salons are actually building or galvanizing the world’s largest voice of beauty professionals who have had the courage to say ‘No!’ to the big juicy problem and instead say yes to working together to create a more sustainable industry.”

Throughout the hour-long, complimentary webinar, the four panelists continue to share:

• How they share information about their sustainable initiatives and how that helps attract new guests.

• How they collect an environmental fee from clients that covers the cost of the salon’s environmental efforts, and how their clienteles reacted.

• How their team members feel about working in an environmentally sustainable salon.

• How becoming a sustainable salon help attract new talent and retain their staff members.

• What other strategies or products salons can employee to embrace sustainability.

• What is emerging in the science of waste technology and the different ways waste can be repurposed or recycled.

• Why now is the best time to go sustainable, and how to do it.

You can view this webinar on demand for free at any time by registering here.