The Retailer Winter edition_2020

Climate and sustainability

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Promoting packaging re-design

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Embracing consumer activism on climate change

• What kind of support was needed to get to this vision? • Grid needs decarbonizing to support in store/operational GHG footprint reduction • Support for supplier and product transformation Team 2: Waste The waste team, similarly, saw challenges in understanding their impacts and span of control on this issue – for example, defining circularity in terms of a retail business. For that reason, they saw collaboration, too, as instrumental to achieving circularity in product packaging, but in this case they saw a greater need for intra-industry collaboration, including advocacy around “slow fashion”! They also recognized the need for enablement tools – for consumers and suppliers – and an enabling policy environment to foster success. How do we get “back to the future”? • Educating to build trust across the business and supply chain and to teach consumers to take back products for recycling and encourage a repair culture • Collaborating across retail brands on takeback programs – taking each other’s products and engaging supply chain partners that can recycle or re-use goods; defining and using bio-based content – is food a byproduct of clothing and vice versa?; and advocating to end fast fashion – promote slow fashion! • Demanding durability standards from manufacturers and longer product guarantees, and that manufacturers design for circularity • What kind of support was needed to get to this vision? • Retailers cited the following EU enabling legislation: • Single material law – no more welding/gluing of different materials • Single country commitment – from material to finished garment – reduce travel time for products • Return a garment/buy a garment policy • Zero Waste to Landfill policy • Uniform waste management policy across the EU/within states Start your sustainability journey If you are not sure where to start, look to resources like the British Retail Consortium and focus attention and action on product categories associate with your biggest spend. Here are some additional concepts that emerged from the panel and workshop discussions.

Deepen customer relationships Engaging in sustainability provides an opportunity to deepen your relationship with customers. Consumers, particularly younger generations, increasingly expect retailers to be more responsible and provide sustainable goods and services, yet willingness to pay varies with the product category and demographic. Consider how to retain links to the product throughout its lifespan through new digital tools and new business models that enhance the customer experience with your brand. Explore new business models The SDGs and related concepts like the circular economy highlight opportunities for new business models, like reselling and trade-in models, facilitated donation programs, and integrated recycling infrastructure. Finding ways to make it easier for the customer to understand and then do the right thing can generate brand value. Collaborate across value chains Engaging suppliers to achieve change is a critical success factor to achieving SDGs, but understanding your supply chain first is essential. Retailers cannot do this alone. Legislators and regulators have a role in incentivizing the right behaviors and levelling the playing field so that companies trying to do the right thing are not priced out of the market for doing so. Coordinating policies across jurisdictions – for instance, establishing a consistent recycling policy across the UK – and investing in infrastructure to support the kind of recycling needed is an opportunity for cross-industry, cross-economy collaboration

GO BACK TO THE FUTURE…

CATHERINE SHEEHEY //ul360@ul.com

the retailer | winter 2020 | 43