Sears sets up partnership to stock its stores with eco-friendly suits US retailer Sears is partnering with Teijin Fibers Limited and Bagir Group Limited to manufacture and sell men’s suits made from a blend of wool and polyester fibres that are produced from recycled plastic bottles. The fabric is composed of 54% recycled polyester, 42% wool and 4% spandex. It takes approximately thirteen 2-litre polyethylene terephthalate bottles to make one full suit. The environmentally-friendly apparel is expected to be available in US stores in May. Contact: Tenjin Fibers Ltd www.teijinfiber.com Bagir Group Ltd www.bagir.com
Nike’s commitment to sustainability On 16 April, Nike announced the launch of the new Nike Zoom MVP Trash Talk shoe which is made using scrap materials, giving a second life to waste generated in the footwear manufacturing process. The shoe will also be packaged in a shoebox made from 100% recycled fibre in a new design which reduces the fibre content by approximately 30%. When this new shoebox is adopted across all Nike footwear styles in 2011, the company expects that it will translate to an annual savings of nearly 12,000 metric tons of cardboard or the equivalent of 200,000 trees. Contact: Nike www.nikebiz.com
Blind community leaders applaud Staples Major advocacy groups for the visually impaired applaud Staples’ new initiatives designed to improve service to its customers with visual impairments. The US office supplier will be improving its payment service terminals at the in-store point-of-sale with tactile keypads to protect the privacy and security of shoppers with visual impairments in accordance with guidelines issued by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The company will also make improvements to the Staples website that will benefit customers with visual impairments and other disabilities. Contact: Staples www.staples.com
Tropicana & Frito-Lay join eco-marketing partnerships Two PepsiCo companies, Tropicana and Frito-Lay, have entered into separate ecomarketing programs. Tropicana has partnered with Cool Earth, an international trust, to offer its “Rescue the Rainforest” initiative which aims to save the rainforest and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Throughout the year, specially marked packages of Tropicana Pure Premium and Trop50 products will carry a code that consumers can enter online. For
each code entered, 100-square-feet of rainforest will be saved. PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay snack unit, SunChips, has joined forces with National Geographic to launch the Green Effect initiative. This national initiative runs from April to June 2009, and encourages consumers to submit their ideas on how to make their communities greener for the chance to win one of five $20,000 grants that will help turn their green ideas into reality. Contact: Frito-Lay www.fritolay.com Contact: Cool Earth www.coolearth.org
Green-marketing defies economic downturn Research ranging from product launches to retail sales shows that green products continue to thrive, with many companies seeing strong sales and mainstream companies launching more green lines, AdAge reported on 20 April. Companies have launched 458 products so far in 2009 that claim to be “sustainable,” “environmentally friendly” or “eco friendly,” according to Datamonitor’s Product Launch Analytics. If that trend continues there may well be over 1,500 new green products launched this year, triple the amount launched in 2008. Contact: AdAge www.adage.com
Consumers lack trust in green claims Nearly one in four US consumers (23%) say they have “no way of knowing” if a product is green or actually does what it claims, according to a new study, Conscious Consumer Report: Refining Value in a New Economy, released by branding and marketing agency BBMG. The agency says this signals a lack of confidence in green marketing and a widespread green trust gap. The report also finds that 77% of Americans agree that they “can make a positive difference by purchasing products from socially or environmentally responsible companies,” and they are actively seeking information to verify green claims through consumer reports (29%), certification seals or labels (28%) and list of ingredients (27%). Consumers are least likely to look at statements on product packaging (11%) and company advertising (5%), signaling scepticism of company-driven marketing. Contact: BBMG www.bbmg.com
Marriott hotels cut back on free newspapers Marriott International, Inc. announced on 13 April that from June it would stop automatically giving all guests free newspapers, instead asking them to choose whether they receive a paper when they check in, or for reward programme members to set their preferences in their account profiles. Marriott said that demand for papers has declined by about 25% in recent months, and that as a way of reducing waste and cutting greenhouse gas emissions, newspaper delivery will be optional for all guests. Marriott expects to save 50,000 papers a day – as much as 13 million papers every year – and save over 10,000 tonness of CO2 emissions per year. Contact: Marriott International Inc. www.marriott.com
Consumers hold steady on ethical commitments The fifth report in the What Assures? series: ‘What Assures Consumers in an Economic Downturn: Reviewing the agenda in the global economic crisis’ was launched on 23rd April by AccountAbility and produced in partnership with The Co-operative Group. Key findings from the report include; 56% of the public say businesses themselves must be accountable for their own behaviour, but only 6% of people trust them to do so. Consumers see huge “accountability gap” between those responsible for business ethics and their ability to deliver – 60% of people see industry regulators as responsible for ensuring businesses behave ethically, but only 20% think the regulators are up to the job. The AccounAbility report found that consumers look to independent channels of information about business performance such as consumer watchdogs, the media, and third party assurance labels rather than information produced by businesses, which implies zero tolerance on overstated claims and greenwash. Whilst 30% of consumers feel they can influence the way a business behaves through their purchasing decisions, 45% are still prepared to boycott products made by companies they do not trust. Contact: AccountAbility www.accountability21.net
‘Together’ UK consumers save a million tonnes of CO2 On May 14 the Together campaign announced that UK consumers have achieved a saving of a million tonnes of CO2 whilst cutting household bills by £200 million. The Together campaign aims to make it easier for consumers to fight climate change in their daily lives by providing affordable products and services in partnership with well known names on the UK high street. Launched two years ago by independent NGO The Climate Group, Together is run in partnership with brands including B&Q, Barclaycard, British Gas, Coca-Cola, M&S, More Th>n, National Express, O2, Sky and Tesco. The million tonne saving – equivalent to taking 390,000 cars off the road for a year – has been achieved through individual actions by people across the UK including insulating lofts, changing light bulbs and washing clothes at lower temperatures. Contact: Together www.together.com/1mtonnes
Comment
Suits made from plastic bottles? To the cynic this could definitely sound like a real case of greenwash.
One could be forgiven for having a rather mixed reaction to the news that US brand Sears will be selling men’s suits made from PET. Is this a serious innovation? Is the consumer really going to latch on to the idea? Do you really want a suit made from waste? Nike’s new Zoom MVP Trash Talk shoe, made from scrap materials is somehow more palatable. Perhaps because they are just for your feet, rather than the whole body, the concept is somehow easier to digest. The point is, however palatable or otherwise, these innovations are the future. We are going to have to accept that consumer goods cannot be made from virgin resources forever. Sears and Nike have done well to realise this and get innovating. Furthermore, it is imperative that these goods do not simply become novelty items, but begin to infiltrate the main stream.
Are consumers ready for these sort of products? Research carried out by Datamonitor is heartening, with green products continuing to do well in a difficult market amid worldwide retail gloom. But before everyone leaps onto the green product band wagon, retailers have a responsibility to take a long hard look at their products, to ensure they will stand up to interrogation. Today’s consumer is a savvy breed, who will not be convinced by company advertising and statements on product packaging, but who requires external verification of green claims and is likely to be rather scepical.
Ultimately, we need a huge upswing in product innovation and creative thinking if the world is going to meet the challenge of limited resources and climate change head on. What we don’t need is greenwashing, or ‘fake’ green consumer goods, which will hinder the process of innovation and put consumers off, making them less likely to buy into the concept of, for instance, a suit made from recycled water bottles.
COMMENTS