By Tom Ryan
With the eco-movement at retail steadily building for years, it's surprising that nearly all of the Sustainability Sessions at Sunday's NRF convention touched on the motivations for going green. The unasked question: If the majority of consumers still aren't 'demanding' it, what's driving the movement?
Speaking at one session, Kevin Hagen, director of social responsibility at REI, the outdoors chain, listed reasons why retailers and brands must have proactive plans for product stewardship. One is activists -- he showed a sign outside a Disney store exclaiming, "Stop Selling Toxic Pajamas to Kids." Second, government agencies are holding firms accountable to know what's in their products and where they come from. Third, consumers are asking for more detailed social and environmental information behind products. Finally, it's comprehensive programs across retail, particularly Walmart's.
But another reason is retail's reputation. As an example, Mr. Hagen encouraged the room to view "Story of Stuff," a 20-minute film attacking America's culture of consumerism by activist Annie Leonard that has been viewed over 1.3 million times on YouTube.
"It's going to have two impacts on you if you're like me," said Mr. Hagen. "First of all, it's 'Wow! That's really depressing.' The second is 'Wow! That's really inflammatory.' Because as a business person, 'The Story of Stuff' says that not only are we part of the problem, we are the problem."
He also somewhat agrees that retail has culpability for the "take-make-waste" environment. "Our sort of rational for a long time has been - 'We're making an economic impact and we're hiring people and we're doing good things. And we're giving people what they want and people keep buying the stuff so it must be okay.' - and we kind of realize that we're rationalizing to ourselves a little bit."
Eventually, green promises to be used much more as a sales tool. Mr. Hagen was speaking on behalf of the Eco Index, an environmental assessment tool being piloted by more than 100 companies within and beyond the outdoor industry. It is currently being used to measure the environmental footprint of apparel, footwear and gear but expected to eventually be used as a customer-facing label, mimicking the Energy Star series on appliances.
Four years into development, however, the content isn't deemed to be rich enough to come up with a rating system for consumers. Said Mr. Hagen, "Our supply chain is great at getting us product. It's really terrible at giving us information."
But he insists sustainability doesn't have to be consumer-driven.
"I think the ultimate question is - why do we need customers' permission to do this? We're finding innovation in our supply chain. We're actually driving costs down or making better products. Consumers will love it. But they don't need to be the reason why we're doing it. And ultimately they're going to appreciate what we're doing and it's [becoming a requirement]. It's no longer the cool green thing to sell. It's the expectation that we know what's in it and where it came from and we got to figure out how to get that information."
Discussion Questions: What do you think is driving sustainability efforts for retailers and brands? How critical is it that sustainability programs have a strong consumer-driven component?