As you may or may not know, we are in the process of opening our second Plato’s Closet. This store is going to be in Murfreesboro, TN (one of the fastest growing communities in the area). When we first started thinking about business ownership we wanted to make sure that we were starting a socially responsible business. Sometimes opportunities just present themselves and our “socially responsible” meter just goes off. We had one of those moments today.
Today my dad/business partner was working on getting the exterior signage for the new store. The sign company took it upon themselves to provide two quotes, one for the standard fluorescent and one using LED lights. Neither one of us knew the LEDs were even an option. I knew LEDs were more energy efficient, but I didn’t know that they use 1/10th of the electricity until my dad told me tonight.
Unfortunately there is another card in play. We are front-loading much more expense with this store than with our first one. The LED sign would cost us considerably more; it is enough to give pause. Granted, over the life of the sign the difference will be recovered in energy expense, but like I said, we are front-loading many expenses already.
Luckily, we can afford it. Since we are capable of shouldering the additional expense right now, it is an easy and clear decision. Plato’s Closet is already a green business (as is just about every buy/sell retail venture). That is one of the things that we liked about it from the beginning (though no one called it ‘green’ 4 years ago). I like that we have an additional opportunity to push things in the right direction. Let’s just hope that Murfreesboro codes dept doesn’t have any problems with LED signage (there are some strange exterior regulations in retail districts).
