The challenges retailers face in meeting sustainability commitments are exceedingly complex, including recent developments due to increasing regulatory pressure. This is made more difficult since the majority of retailers’ environmental and social impact is determined by the many thousands of products they carry, each of which has any number of ingredients from all over the world.
HowGood’s latest white paper, State of Sustainability Marketing in Retail, is intended to address these challenges and offer strategies for tackling them – while providing value for retailers, their customers, and the planet.
Sustainability landscape for retailers
Meeting targets
Most retailers are making ESG commitments but are struggling to fulfill them
Reputational risk
Failing to meet scope 3 targets is a significant reputational risk, especially as consumers become increasingly sensitive to greenwashing
Consumer demand
Sustainable product portfolios build consumer loyalty and increase margins
Lack of transparency in the supply system
The vast majority of grocers’ carbon emissions are determined by the products on their shelves and not by their owned operations
Shifting regulatory landscape
More than 22,500 large companies in the EU, UK, and the US will be impacted by new regulations for sustainability transparency
Targeting scope 3 emissions
Retailers need to vet products for lower impact
Meeting the regulatory moment
Grocers will need to begin gathering granular, ingredient specific data from their suppliers as soon as possible to ensure compliance
Private label considerations
The most expedient and impactful changes to sourcing that retailers can make in their supply system is to their private label brands
Effective sustainability marketing
Product sustainability ratings and attributes are effective methods for consumer communication
