Sustainability
Cover Story
ARE RETAILERS AS ‘WOKE’ ON SUSTAINABILITY AS CONSUMERS?
Thanks to everyone from teenage environmental sensation Greta Thunberg to national treasure David Attenborough, all things sustainability have never been far from the front pages over the last year – but are retailers keeping up with the pace of change? BY ANTONY BEGLEY
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nless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 12 months, you can’t have failed to notice that environmental issues have been front and centre for UK consumers. From David Attenborough’s war on plastic to teenage activist Greta Thunberg glaring at Donald Trump before giving him a good going over, the impact that humans have on the planet has arguably never been higher up the political and social agenda. Society at large has never been so ‘woke’, to use the current parlance, when it comes to all things sustainability – but the big question for our industry is: just how ‘woke’ are retailers?
EVENT
SUSTAINABILITY IN LOCAL RETAIL AS PART OF ITS DRIVE TO EQUIP LOCAL RETAILERS WITH ALL THE ADVICE AND SUPPORT THEY NEED TO POSITIVELY EMBRACE SUSTAINABILITY IN THEIR STORES, SLR WILL BE RUNNING ITS SECOND ANNUAL SUSTAINABILITY IN LOCAL RETAIL EVENT AT THE END OF JANUARY. TO BOOK YOUR PLACE, EMAIL KIRSTY AT KMCDOWALL@55NORTH.COM
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SLR | JANUARY 2020
There are many facets to the sustainability debate, some social and some ethical, some practical and some commercial, yet the reality is that these factors will, and already are, beginning to converge. And the implications for the retail industry are enormous. Take the latest Kantar research, which revealed just before Christmas that over three-quarters of UK grocery shoppers already switch, avoid or boycott brands because of their environmental policies. That statistic alone should be enough to highlight the seismic shift that is going on in the streets and households of Scotland. The challenge for our sector is how we respond to it. In simplistic terms there are two options open to us: muddle along and do what we can to ‘do our bit’ or actively, passionately take steps to lead the revolution from the front. As local retailers with unique bonds to communities across Scotland it doesn’t require much of an imaginative leap to start to see that we almost have a responsibility to do sustainability bigger and better than our multiple or discounter cousins. If we genuinely do have our communities’ interests at heart then it’s incumbent on us to embrace sustainability in every practical way we can and to use our positions at the core of Scotland’s communities to inspire change among others. It’s a simple fact of life too that younger www.slrmag.co.uk
