NEW WAY TO TRADE

Sustainability the fashion way forward
E-mail
Thursday, 07 May 2009
Marks & SpencerIn an opening presentation at the World Retail Congress this week, Guy Champniss, Director of Business Insights at Havas Media Intelligence, unveiled analysis from Havas Media’s proprietary framework, Sustainable Futures 09. This first-to-market tool allows brands to analyse, track and monitor their sustainability programmes and the subsequent impact on brand value. The research, featuring over 20,000 consumers in 10 countries, demonstrates the complex and discerning relationship consumers have with retail brands and their sustainability profiles.

Marks & SpencerUsing a cross sector measurement index called the Sustainable Futures Quotient (SFQ) that measures sustainability performance and its contribution to brand value, Havas Media announced an overall picture for the sector. Retailers such as Wal-Mart recorded relatively high SFQs across all of the 10 markets in the research. When looking at the differences from country to country, notable leaders in the field of communications and sustainability were El Corte Ingles in Spain and M&S, Tesco and Asda in the UK.

Furthermore, a number of sustainability attributes assigned to the marketplace, including responsible marketing, fair prices, the sale of healthy products and good customer service, are found to be important to retail brands. In most cases, the sector is perceived to be a strong performer in this area, resulting in a positive impact on brand value.

When looking into the project in more detail however, there are weaker results with regards to the retail sector’s perceived performance in environmental areas (including sourcing, recycling and packaging), workplace areas (including fair pay, employee and supplier employment) and in ethics and governance. Despite significant efforts from many retailers to lead on sustainable store design, operations and suppliers for example, Sustainable Futures 09 demonstrates that these and many other initiatives are not registering with consumers - and are damaging brand value.

Guy Champniss of Havas Media Lab comments: ”The boundaries of influence for retailers are clearly being challenged by consumers and the importance of genuinely transversal, interconnected approaches to sustainability is clear. Piecemeal approaches are not only less than efficient for businesses; they are less than ideal for consumers. So despite retail being at the front of the pack in terms of the 8 sectors we looked at, there is still a lot to do - and a lot of opportunity being wasted.”

The report was conducted by Havas Media in January 2009 that chose research company GlobeScan as the research partner for the project.