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What is Stopping You from Talking about Sustainability?
While research proves that an overwhelming majority of clients would be impressed to learn about a salon's environmental efforts, stylists still hesitate to talk them up. Sustain Beauty Co's Valorie Tate offers five simple steps to get the sustainability conversation flowing.
by Su Clark
August 12, 2025
3 min to read
At 56%, more than half of your clients would be impressed to learn about your sustainability efforts.
sustain Beauty Co
Introducing change isn’t a walk in the park; it often takes time, energy and sometimes investment, which is why it’s often easier not to rock the boat. Yet tens of thousands of salons are still actively taking steps towards sustainability, even (or maybe especially) during tough times. Clients, when they realize and understand, are almost 100% behind changes that benefit the planet.
So why does it seem like a culture of silence continues to prevail? If the outcomes are positive, why are stylists not shouting about it from the rooftops? It’s difficult to understand why, especially when Valorie Tate and her colleagues at Sustain Beauty Co (who are addicted to finding out what people think) found when they asked more than 1,000 beauty clients that over half (56%) would be impressed if they knew their salon was edging towards sustainability. Only 4% would not.
“Telling your clients about your efforts strikes me as a perfect marketing message, but we’ve found that only 42% of stylists are really comfortable talking about sustainability,” says Tate, founder of SBCo and renowned sustainability advocate. “They feel they don’t have time and are worried they might offend someone or have too little knowledge to go into more depth.”
Fortunately, Tate has a strategy for those salons and stylists keen to showcase their investment in becoming more sustainable. It centers on five easy tactics.
“Keep it simple and uncomplicated, and focus on what we know resonates with clients such as natural products, water conservation and recycling,” says Tate. “Agree a shared message for a set amount of time then move on to something new.”
Valorie Tate, founder of Sustain Beauty Co, offers five tips for talking to your clients about your environmental activities.
The SBCo Strategy to Talking up Sustainability
#1 - Simplify: Focus on one tangible thing and come up with one or two sentences to explain it, making sure it doesn’t dominate the conversation.
#2 - Plan Ahead: Once you know what you want to say, practice saying it out loud and consider where the conversation might go afterwards.
#3 - Lead with Marketing: Let your marketing do the heavy lifting, planting the seed with clever posts, emails or in-salon messaging. This makes it easier for individual stylists to open the conversation. Just make sure everyone knows what messages are out there.
#4 - Delegate: Lean on your teammates by queuing up your front desk and assistants so they can jump in and help with conversations at opportune moments.
#5 - Start Slow: Focus on the actions you are taking rather than getting bogged down in the more complicated concepts surrounding sustainability.
For further details check out SBCo’s Green Fee report: https://sustainbeauty.co/pages/salon-green-fee-study
About SBCo: Sustain Beauty Co was born with the mission to help identify authentic, credible and environmentally responsible brands that put stylists at the forefront of their purpose. All Sustain Beauty Co products must: 1) Reduce the footprint of consumables in our industry. 2) Empower artists to create beauty responsibly.3) Protect the stylist and the environment equally. 4) Come from ethical sources and responsible manufacturing facilities.
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