Celebrating Earth Month with Phorest

As the daffodils rise, the rain falls and days get lighter, it’s no wonder April is earmarked as Earth Month, marking a moment in the year when environmental issues take centre stage. One brand that can educate us on our environmental footprint is salon software company Phorest. We caught up with Luke Doolin, Phorest UK & Ireland Country Manager to find out more about the brand’s Software Sustainability Promise. 

Phorest forest 

“The professional salon industry has really started to embrace the sustainability message wholeheartedly and as a company, not only are we in awe of that, but we’re also determined to do our part for the world at large,” insists Luke.  “Alongside our own environmental initiatives, such as planting thousands of trees and our partnerships with Vish and Green Salon Collective, these are all steps to support the environment and our customers. 

“We work with forestry partners to plant a real-life Phorest Forest, planting thousands of trees. We’re proactively restoring native Irish woodland to improve biodiversity, provide habitat for native spaces, contribute to climate change migration and other various ecosystem services.

“We’re also determined to help our salons go paperless. Our technology can help with providing consultation forms and receipts digitally, whilst the PhorestGo app enables staff with all the information they need to hand.”

In-Salon Initiatives

You don’t need us to tell you that the industry has an issue with the waste produced by plastic bottles, towels, colour tubes, foils, chemical waste, and even hair itself. As a busy salon owner within the hair, beauty and aesthetics sector, trying to dedicate time to being green while also managing a team and business, can be difficult.

“We’ve recently integrated Vish into our software to help hair salons be greener, whilst saving them revenue, too,” explains Luke. “Vish eliminates salon waste by measuring colour on the scale and reweighing the bowl after application. This helps salon owners avoid unnecessary product and chemical waste while also ensuring they’re not overbuying product.”

Green Salon Collective

“We have also collaborated with the Green Salon Collective to help our clients fully embrace sustainability, easily.  Green Salon Collective use specialised recycling processes to ensure everything is either properly recycled into something useful, composted or recovered into energy.”

With salon customers being more aware of business waste, they’ll often be looking to visit salons that have like-minded businesses. Making sustainable choices often means going against the grain of the current systems of entrenched habits. Most people understand that it often requires additional effort and costs. When working with Green Salon Collective, you are lessening your salon’s overall impact. 

Luke adds: “Here at Phorest, many of our clients have even offset the extra cost of being a Green Salon Collective member by charging their clients a small, £1 or £2, ‘Green Fee’ on their bills. This is easily set up on our system, so the charge is automatically added.  

“Going green is also a great marketing message for your team and business to shout about. Plus, with automated salon marketing tools from systems like Phorest, emails, SMS messages, and social media ads, are a game-changer for salon owners to share interesting news like your green initiatives.”