Staples Inc. – Hannah Hopkins – 2025
Summary
Hannah Hopkins strengthened Staples’ sales capabilities and data-driven tools, empowering it to respond more effectively to customer sustainability needs, drive purchasing decisions toward more environmentally preferable products, and make decarbonize key Scope 3 categories.
Goals
Scope 3 emissions account for the vast majority of Staples’ carbon footprint, driven largely by the products it sells. Wanting to turn this challenge into an opportunity, Staples brought on Hannah Hopkins to build out its sales capabilities around its portfolio of sustainable products. The objectives were to help customers understand the impacts of their purchasing decisions and motivate them to make more sustainable purchasing decisions.
Solutions
Hannah approached this challenge in three-phases:
Prioritize focus areas: Identify priority product categories by combining managerial input with emissions data, and align deliverables to target audiences.
Research and stakeholder engagement: Gather environmental metrics for both conventional and eco-preferable products based on key features/certifications while consulting stakeholders to capture existing initiatives and needs.
Develop tools and deliverables: Translate findings into analytic tools, sales enablement materials, and customer-facing reports, incorporating feedback from stakeholders to strengthen final outputs.
Potential Impact
By enhancing Staples’ sales capabilities across five key categories: paper, toner, technology, furniture, and water. Hannah enabled Staples to showcase the environmental benefits of sustainable products more effectively and cohesively. These improvements allow Staples to model potential reductions in Scope 3 emissions, communicate savings to customers, and guide purchasing decisions toward lower-impact options. As a result, Staples can strengthen both its climate strategy and its position as a trusted partner for sustainability-minded customers.
