I saw a post yesterday on LI from a supply trade magazine asking if many people outside of the industry cared about sustainability. I don’t doubt people say on an internet survey they care but this anger at pride-washing, green-washing, and the rest seems fueled by a few. Anyone who argues about greenwashing and still uses online services like Blue Apron, Amazon, or the rest has a disconnect. I’m not sure educating them will build sales. Use less energy, recycle at the corporate level, and lead by example – not PR. That’s my advice.

Cause marketing, and in this case the cause is the environment, seems to be more important than ever. Many retailers (and brand manufacturers) make “green” commitments. For some customers, this is a big reason why they choose to do business with them. Start by educating the customer and show how the brand or retailer is making impact. That’s a good start.

Quick answer to the first question is that the retailers I know are sincere in their green efforts, whether that’s reducing their carbon footprint or dozens of other activities.

On the second question, technology has a dramatic impact on reducing waste in the supply chain. Millions of tons of food and other unsold items are sent to landfills every year. By using AI to support consumer analytics, retailers can more accurately sync supply with demand. But that’s just part of the challenge. We consumers throw away more products, particularly food, than retailers, restaurants and suppliers combined. So there needs to be a dramatic adjustment to packaging sizes that lessens the likelihood of the product spoiling before being used. And the retailers, restaurants and suppliers (and others!) need to do a better job educating consumers on portion size and even things like composting.

I don’t think anyone is looking at environment in a holistic manner. Different functions within organizations are looking at sustainability in their own silos. As a result, there has been a lot of progress that has been made towards sustainable sourcing, green manufacturing, and reusable packaging but, in the end, all that is wasted in the last-mile shipment. For retailers and brands to run more ecologically friendly operations, I think they need to come together as an ecosystem to look at it from earth’s point of view (if that makes sense), rather than as individual companies or functions. It will be always good if they can align people, planet and profit objectives.

There are legitimate initiatives at both retailers and brands, but greenwashing largely prevails. Decarbonizing commerce is increasingly the highest “environmental” priority, but nothing happening in retail or CPG today is at the pace or scale required to align with industry or society-level targets.

The real work needs to involve the entire supply chain and logistics network. What is produced and how, and how those goods ultimately flow (or circulate) between producers, retailers, and consumers has massive implications for the industry’s impact, and I think consensus is building that more accountability is needed upstream. The industry’s energy, heating and cooling, and transportation systems need to be prioritized.

Technical solutions already exist, as do consumer-accepted (if not preferred) alternatives for many cases. But the economics can be challenging, if only because they require significant capital expenditure and process re-architecture.

I’ve often noted that the only thing that seems to motivate retailers more than their own consumers is what their competition is doing. I’d love to see more competition on this front.

Most retailers are committed to becoming more sustainable and many of the efforts they engage in are genuine. The issue is that sustainability policies are often partial and sometimes retailers will act in unsustainable ways out of a drive for growth or the necessity to reduce costs. That is one of the reasons consumers can be skeptical. However looked at positively: taking some steps is better than doing nothing at all. It is also the case that what customers say and do are very contradictory. In surveys, consumers will say that sustainability is important to them, but many do not follow through on these views when determining what, where and how to purchase.

Many retailers have put sustainability goals on their priorities list, but they don’t address the how of getting them accomplished. I would love to see more retailers hire the right people to actually create solutions to become more sustainable at a material level.

The supply chain and waste generation have been the main focuses of sustainability conversations, but there is plenty of room for pursuing energy conservation in the e-commerce arena. Innovation to make digital aspects more sustainable would be an effective way to advance this movement.

Many retailers talk the talk when it comes to environmental responsibility. Far fewer walk the walk. The best way to turn sincere intent into meaningful action is to measure the impact of initiatives and publish the results: If a retailer reduces shrink by adopting inventory optimization practices, that certainly improves their profits, but how much waste and energy use is eliminated in the process? If a retailer re-designs its private-label packaging to eliminate use of non-recyclable plastics, what is the net impact in terms of carbon, landfill space, and impact on the oceans? If a big box retailer installs photovoltaics on all its store rooftops, how many kilowatt hours of electricity would it generate? How much can air conditioning costs be trimmed when the panels cast shade on the buildings? If a huge digital retailer 😉 advances a proactive program to collect and recycle corrugated shipping cartons, how many millions of trees can be saved? In the absence of facts about their outcome, these stories are “greenwashing.” When their impact is measured, indexed and shared,… Read more »