PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Retail giant Target has announced its commitment to reducing harmful chemicals from its products and investing in green chemistry with the release of a new chemical strategy that covers its entire value chain, operations and products. The goal is to be transparent, proactive and innovative when it comes to managing chemicals and, where necessary, developing alternatives.
PRESS RELEASE -
UPS (NYSE:UPS) has formed a strategic alliance with Optoro, providing a one-stop shop solution for retailers and manufacturers to optimize the transportation and disposition of returns and excess inventory. The companies’ joint reverse logistics solutions combine UPS’s operational and logistics expertise with Optoro’s software platform that maximizes recovery value and reduces environmental waste.
LEADERSHIP -
Bangladesh is no longer one of the world’s poorest nations. Today, this emerging nation is steadily growing as one of the world’s leading apparel manufacturers. However, the country’s economic structure remains fragile due to its heavy dependence on textile exports and overseas remittances from emigrant workers, and the country’s manufacturing base and infrastructure require urgent improvement.
PRESS RELEASE -
Goodwill is partnering with leading retailers to make it easy for online shoppers to reuse, repurpose and recycle textiles and clothing this holiday season.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
This Friday will be one of the biggest days in the global retail calendar (just behind Alibaba’s Singles’ Day earlier in November). Black Friday sales have begun encroaching on Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., with some stores remaining open on the holiday, and sales beginning even earlier in the week.
CLEANTECH -
Tom Singh, founder of UK fashion brand New Look, has backed a London-based fashion technology company to help apparel retailers and manufacturers manage their supply chains.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
As retailers and shoppers gear up for another “highly charged” Black Friday, UK anti-waste advocacy organization WRAP has provided a ‘SMART’ guide for buying electronic products.
Each year the UK buys 1.4 million tonnes (or £21 billion worth) of electrical and electronic products; WRAP estimates that consumers discard a similar amount. The SMART guidelines are designed to help consumers keep calm, buy smarter, and avoid unnecessary waste of devices and their components.
PRESS RELEASE -
UPS and Sealed Air Corporation today announced a strategic partnership to help retailers, e-tailers, and businesses around the world maximize the efficiency of their packaging operations, minimize packaging waste, and reduce annual shipping costs.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Walmart hopes to reignite the passion around sustainable packaging with vendors, store buyers, packaging suppliers and consumers with three new, clear goals: Optimize Design; Source Sustainably; and Support Recycling. The priorities were unveiled along with the company’s new “Sustainable Packaging Playbook” at the Walmart Sustainable Packaging Summit this week.
PRESS RELEASE -
Retailers and shopping centers are prevalent in the top businesses installing solar energy because their big-box retail and warehouse infrastructure is ideal, according to the SEIA.
But the organization also said retailers could do much more: While each week 2% of the U.S. population visits a solar-powered Wal-Mart store, for example, just 7% of the retailer's 5,000+ facilities have gone solar.
IKEA and smaller retailers, by contrast, have done just about what they can when it comes to installing solar panels, SEIA said. IKEA, for example, has solar panels at 90% of its facilities.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Our theme this year at Sustainable Brands has been “Activating Purpose” – exploring and applauding the ways brands are authentically walking their talk when it comes to pursuing purpose beyond profit – and we are thrilled that the list continues to grow.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media (DCPI) and Dole Food Company have announced a co-branded assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables featuring iconic Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel characters.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
In the past, H&M has faced criticism for labor issues in its supply chain and its “fast fashion” business model that relies on high rates of consumption.
PRESS RELEASE -
REI, the specialty outdoor co-op, has designed its new distribution center to be Net Zero Energy and is pursuing LEED Platinum—the highest level in the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) rating system. Situated in the Arizona desert, the facility is intended to be one of the world's most sustainable distribution centers. To encourage further innovation, REI is taking an unusual approach and will make the design information of this facility available to the public, so that others can advance the parameters of sustainable design.
REI is driving sustainability and efficiency at its new distribution center in several new ways:
PRESS RELEASE -
The Recycling Partnership, Falls Church, Virginia, has welcomed Target Corp., headquartered in Minneapolis, as its first retail company member. With the addition of Target, members of The Recycling Partnership now represent the entire recycling system for consumer packaging, including manufacturers, brands, retailers and the recycling industry. The nonprofit says this means that members across all sectors have committed to working together to make recycling stronger and to recover more materials for use in manufacturing.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE -
In 2011, Target set a goal for its entire fresh and frozen seafood assortment to be sustainable, traceable, or in a time-bound improvement process by the end of 2015. Through a partnership with consultancy FishWise, the retailer met the goal for 100% of its owned-brand seafood products, and 97% of its full seafood assortment. The remaining products are expected to achieve full compliance by the end of this year.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
IKEA has been quietly piloting various initiatives across its European stores to see how it can build circularity into its service offering for customers. It’s a bold move, given that consumer-facing circular economy business models are still relatively embryonic, particularly in the retail market.
“Over the coming years, we will support customers to care and repair, rent, share, bring back, and resell their IKEA products to prolong product life,” IKEA’s sustainability manager Jonas Engberg told me in a recent interview.
SUPPLY CHAIN -
A new scorecard released today examined thirteen global fast food, retail and food manufacturing companies and found that even the top-scoring of the group are failing to protect South American tropical forests from being converted to pasture for cattle. The clearing of tropical forests contributes about 10 percent of all global warming emissions, and beef production is the largest contributor.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
As cool as it is to know a jacket was made with recycled plastic bottles – or even bio-textiles made from cow dung or kombucha – changing the raw materials is only one of the ways to reduce the environmental impact of apparel and footwear.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Product-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions represented 74 percent of sports retailer Decathlon’s total emissions in 2015. With a new goal to stabilize its emissions by 2019, the company estimates it will need to reduce product-related impacts by 20 percent per year if it is to meet its target. Decathlon says its design teams have taken up the challenge and are progressively integrating environmental criteria into the quality-price combination of all of its products.