Happy Earth Day!
Today is Earth Day: a day to honour the Earth, and to celebrate the ideas of peace and sustainability.
This annual event on 22 April was first held in 1970 – the first Earth Day has been called “the largest single-day protest in human history.” Since then, it has been recognised by the United Nations, and by millions of people around the world.
So today, we want to talk a little about Alvio's commitment to the environment, and how an Alvio business model can help you minimise waste, boost efficiency, and build a better, more sustainable network for the future.
Alvio Lets You Do More With Less
It is a widely accepted fact that energy abundance = human flourishing.
As the petroleum geologist Art Berman repeatedly underscored in 2022: “Energy is the economy.”
His point hits home even harder, when you consider how energy costs have seen significant increases since.
Add in factors like the increasing focus on ecological balance, and the burden on reduced working populations, and it becomes increasingly clear that individuals and businesses must do much more with much less.
While we cannot unhook ourselves from the physical reality of our energy needs, we can generate and use our resources more efficiently. Technology and innovation have the most significant role in driving this – whether at the source (by unlocking new forms of energy such as nuclear fusion), or by reducing the cost and environmental impact of generating energy (in the form of solar, wind or hydroelectric).
But we can also make huge improvements by implementing better downstream efficiency – which helps us to improve productivity, and allocate resources more intelligently.
It all counts… and it's in the latter category, downstream energy efficiency, where Alvio's B2B Partnerships Platform can have the most impact.
In particular, there are three key ways in which the Alvio business model is able to rise to – and answer – the challenges set by Earth Day:
- Reducing mileage in the supply chain
- Promoting higher quality products
- Building sustainable business partnerships
So let’s dive in, and take a look at how each of these works in practice, to build more sustainable and eco-friendly business systems.
1. Alvio actively helps to reduce product miles travelled
Using AlvioConnect, two businesses can partner by creating a direct link between each store. They can then immediately feature each other's products within their storefronts, and sell directly to each other's audiences.
Traditionally, these types of relationships tended to require large MOQs (Minimum Order Quantities) – and the movement of entire pallets of stock between fulfilment locations. Needless to say though, this arrangement demanded a lot of admin, time and technical friction for both parties.
However – with Alvio, a store owner can set up partnerships as quickly as sending a friend request. It’s all configured in minutes, using each partner's existing infrastructure and product locations.
From this arrangement, each partner can now fulfil orders directly to one another’s customers.
This model has a huge effect on reducing the distance that products must travel: When two brands work together with Alvio, they can see as much as 16% reduction in the mileage that products must travel to reach the end customer.
Significantly reducing mileage in this way not only benefits your bottom line – and reduces the chance of damage to bulky or high-value goods – it benefits the environment too.
What better answer to the challenges posed by Earth Day, than to adopt the Alvio model of moving data not products?
2. Alvio partnerships encourage better quality products
The Alvio B2B Platform allows businesses to create direct product partnerships – with win/win dynamics for all connected parties.
It makes no sense for a business to work with a partner that provides low-quality products, or poor customer service. Choose to associate with quality instead: Alvio will help you to drive active, engaged and ambitious business partnerships focused on the end customer.
Combine this approach with Alvio’s innovative product and supplier authentication features, and you can see how the model effectively minimises product fakes and grey goods.
Quality recognises quality, and the Alvio network brings together some of the best in commerce.
Over time, this provides a clear buying guide to the end customer… and it lowers the economic rewards for those bad actors who waste resources producing items that no one wants or values.
Added to that –
Alvio partnerships become extremely powerful and resource-efficient when combined with Print-on-Demand and 3D printing, with the ability to quickly audition products and distribute via an Alvio partnership at the click of a button.
For example, take a look at what our partners UK Print on Demand are doing. Their intuitive system lets you add your design to 500+ different item types, creating attractive mock-ups to feature in your online store – and only when orders come in, are they printed and fulfilled.
(Read more about our Print on Demand partnerships here.)
The result? Together we have built a model that lets you first identify demand, and only then commit the resources to create physical products.
You can call this Alvio’s anti-junk promise.
3. Alvio’s B2B Platform encourages distributed, diverse and sustainable business partnerships
For all of us, convenience is a crucial aspect of modern technology. Yet that convenience has often come at a cost… at its worst, it reduces privacy while fostering fragility, and driving more waste.
Since Alvio allows independent businesses to create and manage multiple direct partnerships easily, this enables them to network their infrastructure – without making substantial internal changes.
Alvio partnerships can be spun up (or down) quickly, at practically zero cost, encouraging a diverse and distributed network of products and services.
Since Alvio is a multi-platform solution, it removes the traditional barriers to direct partnership across different platform ecosystems. And this in turn opens up even more opportunities for individual businesses, while helping to stimulate revenue for all.
Tools like the Alvio B2B Platform allow businesses to build infrastructure and partnerships cost-effectively – on democratic and cooperative networks, that are better for your customers, and better for your bottom line.
Our collaborative networks provide a powerful alternative to mainstream business models – and they let you sidestep the threat of getting absorbed by massive centralised players like Amazon.
At Alvio, we’re building a lighter, greener, faster, fairer way to do commerce in the modern world.
Earth Day Spotlight: Introducing Canopey, your one-stop shop for ethical, greener goods
On Earth Day, we're proud to introduce you to our partners at Canopey.
Canopey provide ethical alternatives and green solutions to modern commerce demands. From fair trade fashion items and beauty products, to vegan food and drink, they’re catering to a growing awareness of – and demand for – sustainable goods.
As they put it themselves: “It’s time to bin Bez*s and buy better.”
Thomas, founder/CEO at Canopey, spoke more about the mission behind the idea:
“For Canopey it’s all about streamlining the consumer journey. We do the heavy lifting, by verifying the claims of brands and their products – and then we bring them into one central marketplace, and make it easy to start making sustainable swaps. It’s removing the barriers and making sustainable shopping as easy and familiar as mainstream shopping”
Added to that, Canopey allows you to track your own personal footprint using their Canopey Calculator: watch the effects of your choices in real-time, and see what you’ve saved in water waste, plastic waste, and carbon emissions, by choosing greener, more ethical suppliers.
As an Alvio partner, Canopey are fully plugged into our network and ready to mingle! So if you produce ethical and sustainable goods – maybe they’ll stock your products in their store. And vice versa, an Alvio partnership would allow a company like Canopey to have their own wares featured in your storefront too, as you collaborate to share market reach.
Summing Up
This year, the theme of Earth Day is to “Invest in our Planet.”
The organisers have set the challenge:
“We need to act (boldly), innovate (broadly), and implement (equitably) ... Because a green future is a prosperous future.”
So what do you say… How about we act, innovate, and implement together this year? This Earth Day, let’s make the choice to work together towards more sustainable commerce models.
The Alvio B2B Platform will help you to do more with less. It allows you to grow your business, to find new audiences and partners, and easily launch new product lines… all with minimal risk and at practically zero cost.
And the bigger picture? The Alvio model drives better quality products, more efficient supply and demand, it reduces transportation miles, and it creates more diverse and equitable business partnerships.
A platform that minimises waste, boosts efficiency, and leads to happier, more productive people… We think that’s something to celebrate on Earth Day.
