Read the full story at Retail Dive.
To join the secondhand market boom, many apparel retailers and brands have turned to third-party platforms that struggle to sustain a profit.
Category: Retail
Drew Barrymore’s sustainable home goods collab nods to the rise of refillables
Read the full story at Triple Pundit.
The effervescent Drew Barrymore has partnered with sustainable consumer brand Grove Collaborative on a line of 15 home goods products. The limited-edition collection features refillable packaging and two signature scents.
Consumers have signaled that they’re ready for refillable and sustainable products, and there’s a blossoming potential to bring them to scale. Celebrity endorsements and partnerships like this one can help influence a growing number of consumers to take the leap toward eliminating excessive packaging and single-use items from their day-to-day lives.
The Playbook: How retailers can use fewer single-use bags and encourage customers to bring their own reusable bags
A product of a first-of-its-kind collaboration among Closed Loop Partners and many of the world’s leading retailers, The Playbook highlights effective solutions to reduce the number of bags needed by retailers and encourage the use of reusable bags customers already have at home. Key insights from the playbook are based on research, interviews, surveys and learnings from 17 of the world’s leading retailers across four key categories: communications, employee training, bag and fixture design, and customer incentives.
H&M taps ThredUp for resale program
Read the full story at Retail Dive.
Indicating the continued rise of recommerce, H&M has teamed up with ThredUp to launch its first resale service, “H&M Pre-Loved,” according to a Tuesday press release.
Starting Tuesday, the fast-fashion retailer will begin offering used items across various categories such as sport, denim and kids. Shoppers can also buy from a “collabs” section featuring items from H&M’s previous guest designer collections and collaborations.
The program is part of the fast-fashion retailer’s efforts to extend the use of its products and establish a circular business model.
REI Co-op raises product standards, tackles PFAS phase-out
Read the full story from Environment + Energy Leader.
REI Co-op, an outdoor retailer, recently announced a third evolution of their Product Impact Standards, which will elevate the expectations of their brand partners to fight climate change, advance inclusion in the outdoors, and manage chemical usage. The standards were first launched in 2018 and updated in 2020 to apply to all products that REI sells in stores.
6th Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) Report
CFP is a program of Clean Production Action and was co-founded by the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the consultancy Pure Strategies, and Clean Production Action.
CFP includes two major initiatives for identifying and moving away from the use of chemicals of high concern (CoHCs) towards safer solutions. One initiative is the CFP Survey, a holistic assessment of where an organization is in its efforts to move beyond regulatory compliance towards best practices in chemicals management. The other initiative is the chemical footprint metric, a quantitative measure of the production and use of CoHCs. The chemical footprint metric is embedded into the CFP Survey and provides a means for companies to set goals, quantify their use of CoHCs, and measure progress.
Highlights from the 6th CFP Report
- Companies with over $1 trillion in annual revenue from seven business sectors participated in the 2021 CFP Survey.
Over one year, they reported chemical footprint reductions of 83.4 million pounds/37.8 million kilograms.- Walmart, one of the world’s largest retailers, surpassed its 10% chemical footprint reduction goal in formulated
products by achieving a 17% reduction and encouraged suppliers to set impactful chemical footprint goals.- Reckitt, a major consumer goods company and retailer supplier with brands including Lysol, Woolite, and Calgon,
announced it is “aiming for a 65% reduction in our chemical footprint by 2030.”- CFP Signatories including investors and retailers established the CFP Survey as a leadership framework in shareholder
resolutions and benchmarking assessments.- The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in its new proxy voting disclosure requirements for institutional
investment managers listed “chemical footprint” among examples for “Environment or climate” reporting requirements.
Loop touts retail store expansion as standalone e-commerce program sunsets
Read the full story at Waste Dive.
Loop, TerraCycle’s reusable packaging program, ended 2022 with about 150 active retail locations worldwide. This includes about three dozen U.S. locations, with grocery pilots at Fred Meyer in Oregon and Giant Food in Washington, D.C., and home delivery for Walmart customers in Arkansas.
Loop launched in 2019 as a standalone e-commerce platform to manage reusable container distribution and collection, but that concept largely is being phased out as the retail program gains traction. Going forward, Loop’s e-commerce presence will be integrated with partners, such as Walmart’s home delivery website, according to the company.
Loop plans for further growth in 2023, with announced expansions coming in France and Japan. It will also work with U.S. retail partners to build the reuse ecosystem and increase product distribution, although concrete plans haven’t yet been made public, according to Clem Schmid, general manager at Loop Global.
Your merchandise was made in a sweatshop. Now what?
Read the full story at Supply Chain Dive.
When it comes to supply chain ethics, retailers may no longer be able to cede responsibility to the brands they sell.
Lowe’s commits to net zero emissions across entire value chain
Read the full story at ESG Today.
Home improvement retailer Lowe’s announced today a series of new climate commitments, including a goal to achieve net zero emissions across its value chain by 2050.
As the outdoor industry ditches ‘forever chemicals,’ REI lags behind
Read the full story at Grist.
Last week, REI Co-op stores around the country closed for Black Friday. It’s a company tradition dating back to 2015, where the outdoor retailer asks customers to “opt outside” rather than participate in a post-Thanksgiving shopping spree.
But there’s one thing that REI hasn’t yet opted out of: a class of compounds known as “forever chemicals.” By using these chemicals in its water-resistant outdoor clothing, a coalition of nonprofits and health experts says REI is needlessly polluting the environment and damaging people’s health.
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