The consideration of the environment that conscientious consumers have been practicing has added an entirely new layer to their information search and evaluation of alternatives when making purchase decisions: how much waste does this product create? How eco-friendly is the brand compared to others? Do these businesses operate in an ethical manner? Questions like these which more and more consumers find themselves asking during their decision-making process have contributed to the green marketing trend, which “emphasizes how products and services are environmentally responsible” (Niosi, 2021g). Unfortunately, the pandemic has severely complicated the ability of many organizations to be “green”, making it difficult for some companies to adhere to their values safely. Consider recycling as an example; recycling is “a process of turning waste into another form of new and reusable materials” (Niosi, 2021h), such as products made from recycled paper, plastic, and glass.

Vancouver-based meal prep company Fresh Prep has always made efforts to model their business as sustainably as possible, and far outrank their competition in this regard. Not only do they use reusable cooler bags and freezer packs that are picked up weekly by their delivery drivers, but they also offer a soft plastics recycling program in an attempt to combat the plastic waste from their meal boxes that would likely otherwise end up in the garbage. Unfortunately, in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic in Canada, they were forced to cancel their recycling program temporarily as an added precaution for their employees, leaving their customers to handle the plastic waste from their meal boxes on their own. For those who are recycling the waste of others during the pandemic, the risk of transmission is very real.

The same can be said for lateral cycling, or the “selling, donating, or giving away [of] unwanted items in an effort to keep them from ending up as waste in landfills” (Niosi, 2021i), and many thrift stores and their customers were also affected by similar pandemic precautions. Numerous secondhand stores were forced to stop accepting donations during 2020, potentially causing more clothing and used items to end up as garbage instead of for sale on the shelves and racks of these businesses. On the flip side, many consumers found themselves hesitant to shop secondhand while COVID-19 was at its worst, out of fear of contaminated used items. Fortunately, such precautionary measures have largely been reversed now as both consumers and businesses have found other ways of adapting to the danger of infection, and the threat presented by the pandemic dies down.