To go green is to save the Earth. But how do digital menu boards fit into that context?
It’s quite simple. You save the copious amount of paper spent on making paper advertisements. Resultantly, you get to minimize the overall carbon footprint. And consequently, it leads you to become a sustainable and environmentally-conscious business.
Down the ladder, besides feeling good about the surroundings, you’ll absolutely love yourself for it. And the bonus point? Around two-thirds of the customers are willing to pay extra money for green-restaurant practices that they come across.
At the bottom-line, going green with your diners kills two birds with one stone – a greener planet and a boost in your revenue.
Why take green-initiatives for your restaurant?
To answer this question, let’s take a look at some lesser-known facts and figures reflecting the impact of non-sustainable slash un-green restaurants have on the environment.
- Around 18 million acres of forests are cut down due to deforestation. Out of these, 40% contribute to manufacturing paper products.
- Discarded paper and paper products make up 26% of the waste in landfill sites.
- Paper products are the third-largest contributor to air, water, and land pollution in Canada.
Countless printing of paper signage, paper menus, pamphlets, and paper advertisers for restaurants can condense into one sustainable technology-solution; digital signage.
But if you’re wondering that digital screens are only an expensive luxury to buy for the sake of sustainability – think again. Going green with digital menu boards is impressively good for the health of your business in the long run.
1. Cost-effective
It’s a one-time investment. You have to spend some money to buy digital screens for use in the next five years, or until a new solution surfaces. The best thing about digital menu boards is that you can update, edit, and revamp them for a different purpose. The software technology allows you to redesign them as many times as you want.
2. Broader Customer Appeal
As mentioned earlier, going green allows you to rope in the customers who seriously value sustainability and are willing to go the extra mile for such restaurants. Luckily, that portion of customers is growing steadily, and so you can expand your market by advocating for sustainability.
3. Improved Reputation
When you connect with customers who value sustainability above the rest, you’re improving your reputation enormously. Digital menu boards, besides a key marketing tool, are direct patrons of a greener Earth.
4. More Sales
In addition to being a marketing tool, the noble cause of going green with digital menu boards ultimately affects your sales. Evidently, the above perks combined lead to more customers without you putting in any extra effort.
How do digital displays (signage) help you go green?
Well, it is quite obvious. It eliminates the use of paper menus.
However, by reducing paper production and paper waste, digital displays are greener as they cut down the greenhouse gas emissions as well. You would be delighted to know that using digital menu boards exclusively in place of paper helps you minimize the electricity bill.
Reduces greenhouse gas emissions
You’d think that by replacing paper waste, digital displays are using up lots of power that, at the end of the day, is adding up to gas emissions. That’s a common misconception.
The green substitute as digital menu boards, for instance, in place of paper menus, supports sustainability without compromising on the functionality.
LED digital display screens have lower power consumption. They are eco-friendly in the holistic sense that they can run for hours without needing to recharge. Ideally, digital signage has 100,000 hours of life – that sums up to 10 years if you never turn them on. Restaurants do not require keeping digital displays on 24/7. Typically, operating hours are 12 at most, so you can easily spend at least five years with digital boards without running the risk of high power consumption or expiry date.
Using an Energy calculator, you can determine the annual cost of power usage of LED digital displays (not LCD). At a rough estimate, it costs a maximum of $18 per year for restaurant owners, where the digital display (signage) runs for 10 hours a day.
You can optimize energy-consumption
If that isn’t enough of a green goal, you can also adjust the power usage of digital screens to reach a further optimal sustainability level. It isn’t necessary to keep the brightness at 100 percent. You can reduce the brightness level down to 70 or 60, which can keep the screens visible throughout the day without being too bright or dark.
Keeping brightness level at a lower point will not affect the effectiveness of digital menu boards. Instead, it will reduce energy consumption by almost 20 percent, and you can enjoy saving a few bucks more.
Recyclable components
There’s no denying that despite a recycling symbol launched some 40 years ago, only a minority of paper is collected for recycling globally. The paper recycling model is a myth – if we were reusing these paper products at the rate we manufacture them, we wouldn’t be amounting to 22 million tons of paper in the landfills (2017).
Thankfully, digital display screens are recyclable. Plus, you do not need dedicated teams to collect them to send in for recycling. The other best thing about digital menu boards is that restaurant owners can take over the task of recycling/swap of components when they realize it needs a fix. This way, individual care doesn’t delay the recycling part, which always has been the case with paper products.
Recycling of displays is via swapping a broken component with a newer one from vendors trading in hardware. You can get a newer device at minimal cost by exchanging the components of your digital displays and easily get them up and running again.
Keeping the points mentioned above in view, it is clear that digital displays are power-packed with benefits. They are a modern solution, look classic, and greener than paper can ever be.
Final Words: Go Green
Digital menu boards are not the only initiative for going green with your food business. Fortunately, there are many ways to go about it. Other approaches include minimizing food waste, planning a sustainable menu, and switching to an eco-friendly packaging of products. You can also reduce energy consumption by cutting down on demand for electricity around your restaurant departments.
Similarly, you can purchase recycled and reused supplies and send the waste to recycling systems to make your restaurants sparkling green!
You can learn more about NexSigns’ Digital Menu Board solution and connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube to get the latest info on digital signage!
