City beats for green business initiatives

CHENNAI: With eco-friendly initiatives being the catchword for business models, green consumer attitude seems to be the most prevalent trend in the city.According to Venkatakrishna AS, Director, Stores on Doors, an online shop for grocery and fruits that was set up in 2009 in Chennai, integrating the green theme in his venture made good business sense. “We believe that a green activity need not be a parallel activity, it can be incorporated in the business process itself,” he asserted.Venkatakrishna adds that the store has a unique process of ‘zero power supply’ for handling vegetables. “Since we buy fresh farm produce and have a ‘farm-to-home in 48 hours model’, we don’t keep the vegetables in shelves since we know the stock we need for the next day,” he explained.In addition, Stores on Doors also took initiatives to motivate its more than 10,000 registered users to avoid plastic bags.“We use plastic crates and gunny bags for bulk volume supply to avoid plastic bags. And we are planning to shift to gunny bags for retail as well,” he said.Underlining the recurrent green theme of the online transaction method, he said, “We adopt digital record keeping and communication to minimise the use of paper for business processes; even regular interactions with customers are via emails.”The store uses a four- wheeler delivery model wherein each of the vehicles plying in different routes will cater to residents of interconnected areas, thereby cutting down on fuel expenditure. In addition, the online venture has also recently introduced an incentive scheme for their drivers who conserve fuel by finding the shortest route for delivering the grocery on time, he adds.To create awareness among   their customer base about green initiatives, the store’s website also has a ‘View Point’ section, where customers can view short films on important social issues, including environment conservation.