The retail industry has a critical part to play in helping deliver a more sustainable economy. Retailers can create enormous change because of their relationships with their suppliers, their workforce and their customers, and many are already seizing this opportunity.

Smart retailers are driving far-reaching changes down their supply chains, encouraging suppliers to raise standards and helping them to operate in ways which are less environmentally damaging and which contribute more to local communities. They are also mobilising the collective power of the huge numbers of people they employ by helping them live more sustainable lifestyles. And, arguably most important of all, they are helping hundreds of millions of customers to make straightforward, affordable and more sustainable choices – vital in the current economic climate.

This isn’t due to a sudden philanthropic urge. It’s about growing the customer base, about attracting and retaining the best talent, and about enabling a more efficient supply chain which is future-proofed against climate change, rising energy prices and resource shortages. It’s about delivering long-term returns to shareholders. In other words, it’s simply good business sense.

Many of the leading retailers we work with are beginning to embrace sustainability, but they all still have a lot further to go. It is now more important than ever for retailers to take opportunities to differentiate, to make cost savings, to build consumer trust and to help consumers make more sustainable purchasing decisions.

Our work

Forum for the Future works with leading companies across the sector – retailers, branded manufacturers, own-label producers and those further down the supply chain –  to help them operate more sustainably, create more sustainable products and make sustainable choices available to their customers.

• We help companies understand what leadership in sustainable retail looks like and what is right for them. We use our leadership hallmarks to help companies benchmark themselves and work out the areas in which they can strive for leadership – as we did with Alliance Boots.
• We create specific strategies which help our partners meet the challenge of sustainable development and deliver business success. We continue to advise Marks & Spencer on its successful Plan A campaign and we helped Cadbury develop stretching targets as part of its industry-leading Purple Goes Green climate change strategy.
• We help partners innovate more sustainable new products and services. We are working closely with the R&D teams of a number of our retail and FMCG partners.
• We prepare retail businesses for, and help them shape, the future of retail. We help companies identify the key sustainability opportunities and challenges over the coming decades, and – critically – how they might act on them now. We developed a set of global scenarios for PepsiCo and used them as a lens to identify sustainability risks and opportunities for the company in 2030 and what it needs to do now to address those. We also helped Kingfisher develop a new set of sustainability goals, which it is implementing in its Steps to Responsible Growth environmental and social programme.
• We examine sector-wide challenges, from carbon labelling to how to avoid greenwash, and identify practical ways forward.

News

Mainstreaming sustainability into brands: smart consumption seminar 2nd March 2010, London
We're running a seminar exploring how to mainstream sustainability into brands. The aim of the event is to share stories on how leading FMCG companies have mainstreamed sustainability into brands; to discuss the business benefits of certification schemes like Fairtrade; and to identify practical tips/lessons to take away for how to get sustainability into brands. The seminar is open to Forum partners and will be particularly relevant to those in the FMCG area. Contact us for more information or to sign up to attend if you work for a Forum partner.

'Time for a retail revolution' blog
When you see the chief executives of five world-famous companies debating how to make the broader retail sector more sustainable, you realise a quiet revolution is underway. The senior figures in question were the bosses of Tesco, Coca Cola, Unilever, SC Johnson and Reckitt Benckiser, responsible for combined sales of well in excess of £100 billion. The stage was the Sustainable Consumption Institute event –‘Consumers: the key to a low carbon world’ – held at the Royal Society in London this month.

'Sustainability trends in European retail' report
Report on what retailers are doing to address the big environmental and social challenges of our time and how they are aiming to derive financial value from these activities. The work was sponsored by manufacturing and distributing company Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd, based in the UK.

'PepsiCo Global Scenarios and Strategy 2030' project
In 2009, Forum for the Future used global scenarios to help PepsiCo identify the major sustainability risks and opportunities that it will face in 2030 and what it needs to do now to ensure it is successful in decades to come.

Our partners

Alliance Boots
Cadbury
Cafedirect
Colors Fruit
The Co-operative
Finlays
Firmenich
Heineken UK
John Lewis Partnership
Kingfisher
Kraft
Marks & Spencer
PepsiCo UK
Pret A Manger
Sainsbury
Tesco
Tetra Pak
The Tetley Group
TJX Europe
Unilever
Volac
Warburtons
Wm Morrison

Our members in the retail sector

Beverage Can Makers Europe, Cargill, Duchy Original and IGD

Contact: Dan Crossley