WASTE NOT -
UK waste-reduction charity Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has announced a three-year commitment to reducing clothing waste through a new €3.6 million pilot project. Funded by EU LIFE, the European Clothing Action Plan (ECAP) aims to divert over 90,000 tonnes per year of clothing waste from landfill and incineration across Europe by March 2019.
LEADERSHIP -
Today, a group of some of the world’s biggest brands, retailers, NGOs and industry groups launch a Social and Labor Convergence Project, with the aim of improving working conditions in apparel manufacturing across the world.The group says the project seeks to achieve real, sustainable change through the collective development of an industry-wide, standardized methodology for social and labor performance assessment in apparel and footwear supply chains. Through this, the industry believes that it will be able to significantly reduce the amount of money that it spends on duplicated auditing and invest the money saved in improving social welfare for millions of people employed in apparel manufacturing around the world.
STAKEHOLDER TRENDS AND INSIGHTS -
It’s been five years since California signed a groundbreaking piece of legislation that set a legal precedent around the world. the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, better known as SB 657, requires manufacturers and retailers with more than $100 million in gross annual receipts to disclose their efforts to ensure that their supply chains are free of human trafficking and forced labor.At the time, the law was the first of its kind. Since then, California’s leadership to eradicate human trafficking in supply chains has made way for a wave of reform efforts in Congress, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
British grocery chains Tesco and Waitrose have added a new facet to their waste-mitigation efforts by launching upcycled packaging.Beginning this month, Tesco shoppers could get their groceries in recycled plastic bags made from back-of-store waste plastic, such as pallet and multi-pack wrapping. Recycling firm Eurokey is collecting and sorting Tesco’s plastic waste, and plastics recycler Papier-Mettier is processing it and turning it into single-use carrier bags.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Flipping the business-to-consumer (B2C) model on its head, San Francisco-based startup WUSIC wants to disrupt the retail industry through a “consumer-to-business” (C2B) model where consumers go straight to manufacturers for the largest savings possible. Consumer demand would dictate supply quantity and price from online marketplace Alibaba’s network of global factories, effectively cutting out big box middlemen such as WalMart and Target.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Target has improved its sustainable product standard by beginning to test category-specific criteria and consider more toxic chemicals. The retailer’s Sustainable Product Index evaluates products based on a points system and the highest-scoring options are promoted under its “Made to Matter” banner.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Furniture waste is the focus of two reports released this month. UK think tank RSA and recycling and waste company SUEZ published Rearranging the Furniture, which takes a design-focused approach to bulky waste reduction, increased reuse of furniture, and development of a circular economy. And the Furniture Re-use Network’s (FRN) new report, Commercial Retailers: Their Impact on the UK Reuse Sector, discusses the impacts of FRN partnerships with major furniture and electrical equipment retailers.
CLEANTECH -
This week, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) released both its second Retail Energy Management Report — a resource for companies to compare energy management programs across the industry and identify opportunities for progress — and its third Retail Sustainability Report, which identifies core components of retailers’ sustainability programs and benchmarks how the industry is progressing on key sustainability indicators.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
One year after drugstore chain CVS Health stopped selling cigarettes, the company released new data that shows the decision has influenced tobacco sales across many types of retailers and announced a new school-based tobacco-prevention program.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Next month, H&M will introduce 16 new denim styles made using recycled cotton from textiles collected in the Garment Collecting initiative in H&M stores. The pieces for men, women and kids are the latest steps toward H&M’s goal of creating a closed loop for fashion, and will be available in all stores worldwide, as well as online.“Creating a closed loop for textiles, in which unwanted clothes can be recycled into new ones, will not only minimize textile waste, but also significantly reduce the need for virgin resources as well as other impacts fashion has on our planet,“ says CEO Karl-Johan Persson.
COLLABORATION -
For years, the answer to the question “Do people really want to buy more sustainable products?” was a profound “sort of.” Surveys consistently show that we aspire to buy responsibly, and we even say we’ll pay more for environmental or socially preferable products. But purchase intent does not always translate to real sales, and companies have often struggled to make sustainable products more mainstream.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Not to be confused with the Fruit Rollups many of us probably grew up with here in the States — we’re talking about a solution to one of South Holland's (not to mention the rest of the Western world’s) biggest social issues (food waste), developed by a group of undergraduates from Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Today’s instant communication means brands must respond to calls for transparency or risk widespread exposure to reputational damage. Two recent investigations of major brands reveal the power of public calls for accountability in motivating brand behavior changes.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
IKEA will be the first national retailer in the United Kingdom to pay workers above the government's new National Living Wage, BBC News reports.The Swedish furniture company said it would pay all of its 9,000 UK workers at least £7.85 (US $12.22) per hour hour starting in April 2016. Employees in London will be paid £9.15 ($14.40) an hour, reflecting the higher cost of living. The wage increase will affect around half of the company’s UK employees.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
Greenpeace released the ninth edition of its Carting Away the Oceans (CATO) report today, ranking 25 supermarkets on the sustainability of their seafood procurement. Whole Foods ranked first for the third year in a row, followed by Wegmans, Hy-Vee, and Safeway in the “good” category. In total, 80 percent of evaluated retailers received passing scores overall.Supermarkets were scored across four areas:
LEADERSHIP -
AT&T, Verizon, and Cisco are among the dozens of internet service providers, equipment suppliers and retail equipment manufacturers to join the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) in announcing a new voluntary agreement to improve the energy efficiency of internet modems, routers and other equipment that deliver broadband to millions of American consumers.Other companies to sign on include Charter Communications, Comcast, DIRECTV, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, CenturyLink, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable, Actiontec, ARRIS, D-Link, EchoStar Technologies, NETGEAR and Pace and Ubee Interactive.
WASTE NOT -
As awareness has grown of the reprehensible amount of food we throw away in the western world (an estimated 40 percent), efforts to combat food waste have emerged from a variety of places along the food value chain, particularly at the retail level, and primarily in Europe: Last year, French supermarket chain Intermarché led the pack with its ingenious “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” campaign, which aimed to prove to picky shoppers that less than perfect produce is still just as delicious and nutritious (and slightly less expensive).
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
On Thursday, Whole Foods Market today announced the name of its new streamlined, value-focused brand of stores: 365 by Whole Foods Market. Slated to begin opening in 2016, the new stores promise lower prices on natural and organic products that meet Whole Foods’ existing quality standards.Jeff Turnas, a 20-year Whole Foods Market veteran, will serve as president of 365 by Whole Foods Market and will be based at the company’s headquarters in Austin.
WASTE NOT -
UK grocery giant Tesco has announced a new scheme to mitigate food waste, where surplus food from its stores is redistributed to people in need.Tesco has partnered with UK food redistribution charity FareShare and Irish social enterprise FoodCloud to trial the FareShare FoodCloud app in the UK. Tesco has already been working in different areas of the supply chain to tackle food waste — including through its existing partnership with FareShare — and this new scheme will mean eliminating the need to throw away food in Tesco stores that could otherwise be eaten.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
In a landmark move last week, France's parliament voted to forbid major supermarkets from destroying unsold food, encouraging them to donate to charities or to farms for animal feed, as part of a national campaign against food waste; an estimated that up to 66 pounds of food are wasted per person each year. The French government announced in 2012 that it wants to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2025.The amendment, unanimously approved Thursday by the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, is part of a larger environmental bill. The overall bill will go to a vote Tuesday in the Assembly, then goes to the Senate, and is likely to pass in both houses.