Social Impact Leaders — Interview w/ Shahryar Faraji of 1receipt®
Shahryar Faraji came up with 1receipt idea after seeing people exiting shops and department stores with long white dockets (shopping receipts) and disposing of them into the nearest bin. This inspired him to embark on 12 months of research to find a solution to prevent paper wastage.
He was not just looking for a more sustainable solution, but he also knew it had to be a financially sound one for retailers to take it up. Australians are also forced to keep receipts for at least 5 years for GST and other tax purposes — a task which looks practically impossible due to the maximum one-year life span of the thermal paper receipts.
This journey led Shahryar to launch 1receipt® — a Melbourne based fintech start-up with the goal of eliminating paper receipts and reducing our paper wastage footprint by shifting to a true contactless digital shopping receipt.
Social Impact — What meaning do you personally associate with this term?
I believe that we each have the opportunity to make a social impact and propel society forward. At 1 receipt, we’re a team of environmentally-concerned engineers who came together in pursuit of change. A change for the better. 1receipt is our first step in creating a healthier and more sustainable Earth by eliminating paper receipts.
Social Responsibility — What is your best practice to integrate it into your daily life?
Currently our society is searching for new ways to help retailers to reach, interact with, and utilise data from customers. The push to use “personalisation” has gained momentum over the past decade with retailers coming up with more innovative ways to create a positive experience for their customers. Accordingly, after two years of hard work, we developed an impactful, hassle-free, all-in-one and Cybersecured platform for retailer Point Of Sale (POS) systems: 1receipt® Contactless Receipt.
Conscious Living — Why is it important to live our life consciously? And how do our actions influence and affect each other, and therefore connect us?
Living consciously is a lifestyle, a skill, an art. It’s not something you do just once, but a habit that you can form for the rest of your life. The more conscious we are of our surroundings, the more conscious we’ll be as communities.
Conscious Consumerism — Why, now more than ever, it is important to reflect on our buying habits, and research the brands we are consuming?
It is important to reflect on our buying habits in a way that we can make a positive impact on the environment. We only have one Earth and climate change is a real threat. Each of us has a responsibility to research and find out if the product you are buying is causing harm to our plant. I’m hoping people will stop accepting thermal paper receipts which damage our trees and move to a digital solution like 1receipt.
Commercial — From your point of view, what are the commercial practices that are unhealthy to humanity?
Any form of deception to the customer which could be: false advertisement, deceptive pricing, not clear how it works, and too good to be true schemes. Transparency and honesty are key.
The Future — What is your personal outlook on the future?
The future is uncertain but the end is always near. At this time, we are at a crossroad with major technological advances and a very, vocal political social climate heightened by a global pandemic. It is a very interesting time to be alive where people are more conscious than ever, and more socially unconscious than ever before.
Change — What do you personally think needs to change — from a consumer perspective and within the corporate world?
Making conscious investment to keep our precious planet protected for longer as we only have one Earth, there is no planet B.
1receipt® is trying to make a change with it’s eco-friendly product that aims to reduce paper wastage, retailer expenses and help customers store their receipts digitally.
THANK YOU!
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Demee Koch about the MEDIUM interview series on Social Impact:
Hello! I am a serial entrepreneur practising conscious entrepreneurship. This is an interview series about social responsibility and the best practices in incorporating it into our daily lives.
Every day, we make an impact consciously and subconsciously. It is implemented through our actions.
A great example of this is the practice of our Purchasing Power where we can actually direct our impact by consciously deciding which brands and companies we nourish.
I interview change advocates about best practices for incorporating social consciousness into our daily lives, and practices in the business world that need to change for the benefit of social responsibility.
With this interview, we invite the reader to reflect their every day actions. We all have an impact, and if we are consciously aware of that, we can be empowered to start the change for a better future.
Thank you for being the change. I’m looking forward to learn from each one of you. Reach out to me via LinkedIn.
Demee ❤︎
