What do you think of when you see the phrase "retail pharmacy store design"? Choosing the right fixtures, floor layout, and proper lighting to serve your customers well? Making sure you have incorporated security features to be compliant with HIPAA regulations?
These things are certainly important, but there's another element you may not be aware of. It's a relatively new trend in pharmacy store design, called "green" design, which focuses on ecologically friendly sustainable features that are good for the environment – and good for your bottom line, too.
Why should you choose sustainable retail pharmacy store design?
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You will save money
When you focus on construction or renovation with an eye towards energy efficiency, you are not necessarily spending more now to save more later. While that was once true, today, you can save money immediately as well as over the long term with your retail pharmacy store design.
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You will attract customers
Today's consumers are increasingly environmentally conscious. This means that they actively look at making "greener" choices in their own lives, both to save money and to take care of the environment. They focus on this in terms of what they do at home with recycling, utilizing energy-efficient options like compact fluorescent light bulbs, and choosing products made from recyclable plastics, for example, but they also want to patronize eco-friendly businesses. If you are, you will attract those customers.
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You will make your store more esthetically pleasing
"Green" architects and designers improve the look of green building and landscaping techniques, such that these facilities in effect blend in with the environment and look like part of it. Instead of staid old cookie-cutter buildings, today's green buildings utilize techniques that make these buildings look like works of art. Instead of being boring and restrictive, the buildings themselves become artistic and attractive. And because they are energy-efficient and utilize materials that work with, not against, the environment, this more attractive design saves you money.
How can you incorporate sustainable retail pharmacy store design in your store?
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Use natural and energy efficient lighting whenever you can
Install skylights, and/or use energy-efficient fluorescent or LED lighting.
A bonus: this type of lighting actually mimics natural outdoor lighting, which gives your customers a more pleasant shopping experience.
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Install heating and cooling systems that utilize renewable energy
Improved ventilation in lieu of air conditioning and passive solar heating in lieu of traditional fossil fuels heating both saves you money and is better for the environment.
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Install solar panels to generate electricity
This is self-explanatory, but it is worth noting that solar power photovoltaic production costs are one third what they were just five years ago; this makes them much more affordable for even small retailers, meaning that they can be an important part of your "green" retail pharmacy store design.
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Choose pharmacy fixtures and other components made of recycled materials if you can
Increasingly, pharmacy fixtures are made of recycled materials, both post-consumer and post-industrial. Whenever possible, choose to buy pharmacy fixtures, furniture, and flooring made of recycled materials for your retail pharmacy store deisgn.
It is important to be as environmentally responsible a pharmacist as you can be – and it's easier than ever. Pharmacy fixtures made of post-consumer and post-industrial recycled materials are increasingly easy to find, and it has also become much easier and less expensive for you to incorporate "green" technologies like natural lighting and renewable energy heating and cooling systems into your pharmacy design. Environmentally conscious consumers are increasingly choosing to shop at eco-friendly businesses, which will put you ahead of the competition -- and you will make their shopping experience more enjoyable. Help the environment and your customers by going "green"; you will reap the benefits, too.
