{"id":46442,"date":"2025-09-27T08:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T08:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/46442\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T08:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T08:57:09","slug":"brown-thomas-hits-targets-with-paper-bag-charge-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/46442\/","title":{"rendered":"Brown Thomas hits targets with paper bag charge \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Just a bit more than a year ago, department store <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/brown-thomas\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/brown-thomas\">Brown Thomas <\/a>began charging customers 60 cent for branded paper carrier bags. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">There was much gnashing of teeth, with some customers irked by being asked at the till to pay for a branded paper bag to carry home their purchases after potentially spending hundreds of euro in store. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Brown Thomas said the move was designed to promote sustainability and reduce the number of bags it handed over the counter. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It also said the profits from the bag initiative would be used to fund a scheme to plant 100,000 trees here over the next 10 years in partnership with Crann, a voluntary organisation promoting hedgerows and woodlands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A year on, how has the initiative gone?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">\u201cIt has achieved all of the sustainability goals,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/donald-mcdonald\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/donald-mcdonald\/\">Donald McDonald<\/a>, the retailer\u2019s chief executive told The Irish Times. \u201cWe\u2019ve planted the 10,000 trees, and we\u2019ve reduced bag consumption by close to 40 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">What has been the reaction of customers over that time?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/your-money\/2024\/08\/12\/brown-thomas-defends-decision-to-charge-customers-60-cent-for-paper-bags\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brown Thomas defends decision to charge customers 60 cent for paper bagsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThere\u2019s little or no noise from customers. That\u2019s not to say that there\u2019s none, but last month it was fewer than five complaints. There are people who don\u2019t agree with the principle. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cBut we believe there\u2019s an environmental cost to the bag itself and the whole thing was to change customer behaviours around bags. It has achieved what we wanted to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Other Irish retailers are also charging for paper bags, though it\u2019s not clear if any of them are diverting the funds for green initiatives. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Worth noting, too, that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/selfridges\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/selfridges\/\">Selfridges<\/a> department store in the UK, which is part of the same group as Brown Thomas, does not charge for paper bags. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cEvery business makes its own decisions,\u201d McDonald said diplomatically. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Based on the results to date, it would appear that Brown Thomas hasn\u2019t made a bags of customer relations with the charge. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just a bit more than a year ago, department store Brown Thomas began charging customers 60 cent for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[34320,72,6572,34321,61,60,34322],"class_list":{"0":"post-46442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-brown-thomas","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-cantillon","11":"tag-donald-mcdonald","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-selfridges-group"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}