This gives rise to the obvious question “Why focus on sustainability?”
The word sustainability connotes a pollution free world. This can be achieved when energy consumption is minimized, carbon foot print reduced and employees have a healthy work environment. To achieve this, retailers need to mend the supply chain system, revamp stores and distribution centres and minimize waste generation.
The background
The Switch Programme developed by European Union helps retailers adopt sustainable supply chain practices. Switch stands for switching to sustainable consumption and production practices.
The objective is to create and understand change through the comparisons of ‘pre’ and ‘post’ metrics. Change is required in the upstream value chain, where a number of suppliers and vendors collaborate, to downstream of the value chain – where the consumer is impacted.
To implement change on this magnitude, the Switch Asia Programme, a regional programme, is running the Green Retail Project of four year duration in India. The Green Retail Project, funded by the European Union (EU), is spearheaded by CII along with the four partners, Retailers Association of India (RAI), Asia Society for Social Improvement and Sustainable Transformation (ASSIST), Austria Recycling (AREC) and Stenum ASIA.
Focus: Food & Beverages
Like other industries, retail has taken its share of the blame in impacting the environment. As the sector grows this impact becomes severe. For example: the Food & Beverage (F&B) sector, which accounts for 60% of retail business, is the most energy intensive industry in India.
Ms Seema Arora, Director of Green Retail Project, says, “In the F&B sector, 40% of products go to waste either in supply chain operations, retail outlets or consumer use phases. This is a huge number, indicative of inefficiencies in the system and has direct financial implications – cost, production output and sales. Even if we are able to address these two big sustainability impacts of the chain, it is not complete until we work with consumers and society in getting them to use more sustainable products towards improving their lifestyle. To achieve this, retailers have to provide products that are more sustainable than the norm in their manufacture, use and disposal – this requires close collaboration with supply chain members – and also generate awareness, communicate and educate consumers in going for a more sustainable option. Creating a shift in consumers’ mindset is a hard but extremely important task that the retail industry has to undertake.”
Future focus:
India has adopted National action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) in 2008 to implement integrated strategies for achieving key goals in the context of the climate change. The eighth National Mission is the core mission of NAPCC which is coordinated by the Mission on Solar Energy and Energy Efficiency. As an extension of the national plan, state level action plans have been drafted and deployed at various level of governance aligned with the eight National Missions. “India has announced a domestic goal of reducing the emission intensity of its GDP by 20-25 per cent of the 2005 level by 2020. This will be achieved through a multi-sector low carbon development strategy,” says Ms Arora.
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