HOWELL
Howell business owners inspired by their son to go green
Jennifer Eberbach
Livingston Daily
Published 4:01 a.m. ET July 19, 2023
HOWELL — A local couple with an e-commerce resale fashion store want to be as carbon-neutral and compostable as possible.
After launching the online consignment store several years ago from home, Kyle and Karley Evans moved The Resell Club in 2018 to 138 W. Highland Road. The store was formerly called Luxus and Invoco.
For any e-commerce business, shipping is a major part of operations. The process is often wasteful, from packaging to transportation emissions. The couple said their seven-year-old son is an animal and nature lover, encouraging them to tweak their choices and become more eco-friendly.
"He loves seas turtles," Kyle said. "He’s so kind. That really pushed me to do more for the environment and protect these things that he seems to care so much about."
The Resell Club carries women's, men's and children's clothing and fashion items, such as shoes and purses, online. The first step they took to "go green" was sign up for a carbon-neutral shipping calculator through Shopify Planet, an app and service.
The app calculates the club's estimated carbon footprint and deducts funds from their account each month to offset the store's environmental impact.
"They donate the money, for the most part, to reforestation," Kyle said. "It’s a small thing that a lot more companies could do. If more companies did something little here and there, that would really add up."
The Resell Club recently joined "1% For The Planet," a program through which businesses donate 1 percent of their annual sales to environmental causes they select from a list of participating organizations.
"We don't have to decide (which environmental cause) until the end of the year. One of them around here is Island Lake State Park," Kyle said, adding he's also reached out to the Howell Nature Center.
"We want to keep it super local," Karley said.
"We don't just want to help the planet," Kyle clarified. "It's a big place. We want to help Livingston County and have a local impact."
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The couple also uses compostable and recycled packaging. The ink on shipping labels is soy-based. They recycle cloth from damaged clothing.
"About half of our shipments now go out in about 100 percent compostable (packaging), from the tissue paper we wrap the item with, to the sticker, the bag, and the shipping label," Kyle said.
Many orders fit into purple Heropack brand shipping bags, which are compostable and don't require tape.
"As soon as we're out of tape, we're moving to compostable tape, probably by the end of the year," Kyle said.
They hope to be named a climate and carbon-neutral business in the future and are on a waitlist to apply for certification.