The environment: who is doing their bit for sustainability and how we can learn to be green!
We all acknowledge that we need to do our bit for the environment, and for businesses this means factoring ‘being green’ into their day-to-day practice to improve their impact for the greater good. With the cost of living crisis, it has been frequently mentioned that it is often considered as a brush off component as some can be too focused on making money rather than existential factors in a time of financial difficulty. However, there are brands throughout the retail industry that have been praised for their green efforts.
Although across both in food and fashion we see examples of green initiatives and mission statements being released weekly. We want to highlight the importance of sustainability, and how this is being practised by retailers and how we can all learn from their practices and initiatives.
In the food industry we have seen companies such as Starbucks, that have recently made a pledge to certify the first five UK greener stores, with the aim to reduce their carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 alongside the introduction of 10,000 greener stores by 2025. They plan to cut the amount of water and waste used within their global operations.
As we all know there have been several brands that have come under scrutiny as a result of their practice incorporating a lack of transparency in their environmental focus. But with positive proofing such as the UK based milk company Glebe Farm has been noted to offer sustainable alternatives to oat milk as well as a variety of porridge oats and granola products with the promise to be entirely net zero by 2028.
Following on, supermarkets have joined initiatives with Climate Action NGO, aiming to have 80% of packaging on fresh fruit and vegetables removed by 2025. But it is now set to be 30% loose by 2025. This will be set to rise to 50% by 2030 across all packaging. As a result of the reduction, it is worth considering are companies going to increase their product price points or decrease it as a result of the change? In the current financial climate, sustainability has been noted as a priority for UK grocers despite a pandemic and subsequent downturn preferences have shifted slightly.
In the fast fashion industry it is often thought that there’s less consideration for their environmental impact as their carbon footprint as an industry is ever increasing. As we all are slightly guilty of slipping into purchasing from fast fashion brands, maybe it’s because of convenience? Ecover has recently introduced bottles that are plant based and made from recycled materials when creating their packaging, Which also encourages the USP to refill their products. By offering these initiatives we can reduce the damning statistic that the UK alone contributes to 8-10% of global emissions from fast fashion more than any other country in the world.
Companies taking their green initiatives:
Waitrose have introduced the initiative that they will aim to reduce their unnecessary packaging and are set to become the first supermarket to sell wine bottles without plastic or foil sleevels that are typically found around the neck. Which is aimed to save half a tonne in packaging every year.
In turn, John Lewis have also decided to develop sustainable offerings such as rental and resale options at their brick and mortar stores along with a new sustainability focused pledge including their biodiversity programme with WWF. This partnership wants all key materials such as timber, cotton, soya, palm oil, cocoa and cashmere to come from sustainable sources by 2025.
Notably companies such as Pandora, aim to halve their greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. By including corporate social responsibility in wanting to reduce their emissions from raw materials, packaging, transportation and franchise stores by 42% over the next 7 years by including these factors have taken important steps by choosing low carbon materials such as recycled silver and gold alongside more sustainable packaging.
With all of these brands in mind, it is often regarded that more companies are incorporating sustainability and green initiatives into their business practices. Despite it being a positive thing that companies are being more sustainable, we can appreciate that this is not an overnight success and is a process, but by putting initiatives and mission statements in place are just the beginning. With notable timelines it is great to see how we can all improve retail’s environmental impact over the next decade. We can all learn from the retailers that have been mentioned throughout the article as to how we can better ourselves the retail industry for the future.