Sustainability

From DKGAnalytics. Many companies are taking up the charge to decrease their impact on the environment. It is a multi-dimensional effort to balance what is best for the planet and what is best or the business. As consumer awareness and regulatory constraints increase, the focus becomes not just the "right thing to do", but also the "best thing to do".

From Retail Systems Research. For a restaurant organization, there are three reasons to enact environmentally sustainable practices: to save cost, to reduce waste, and to build a greener brand – ultimately creating customer loyalty. In fact, the best performing restaurateurs believe green-minded consumers care enough about a brand’s ecological positioning to factor it into “where to dine” decisions, creating a viable opportunity to gain new business. However, the means to successfully enacting such practices require significant retooling of the organization enterprise wide, and the need for better education to what well-run sustainability practices look like abounds.

From Retail Systems Research. Much has changed in the brief 12 months since our 2008 report on environmental sustainability in retail. Not only has the overall sentiment about green evolved, but the areas where retailers are investing have changed significantly. Retail Winners (those retailers whose sales are already outperforming their competitors’) have made even greater progress: for them, green is rapidly creating a strategic advantage in ALL corners of the enterprise, and has become a major component of the planning for any new IT investment.

From Retail Systems Research. "Green" is everywhere today. Media focus has been on reducing carbon emissions, or the "CO2 footprint" of individuals and companies. Virtually all components of a "reduce, reuse, or recycle" program ultimately require burning less carbon-emitting fuels and reducing emissions put into the planet’s atmosphere. The goal of all environmentally friendly practices is to reduce carbon footprints and minimize waste in general. These practices include reducing traditional energy consumption, using alternative energy sources, reducing and reusing materials, more efficient and using cleaner transportation, and reducing use and improving disposal of hazardous materials. But what tangible opportunities do greener practices hold for retailers? And can these opportunities affect the bottom line? What we found might surprise you.