[Intern Insights] Imagining the Future: Retail and Consumerism, How they affect the World

What is the consumerism?

Consumerism in one of its interpretations is a doctrine which states that the increasing consumption of goods and services is the basis for a healthy economy (Business Dictionary, 2017). In other words, for a society to function properly, it must produce and sell goods and services (Shah, 2005). Capitalism 101. The more that is produced, purchased, and consumed, the more successful and prosperous the economy becomes. This culminates in the yearly gross national product (GNP), the measure of success every nation uses to rank its economic power (ibid).

What does that have to do with the Retail Industry?

Retailers are defined as the final link between manufacturers and consumers. Basically retailers are where demand and supply meet (The Balance, 2017). Philosophically, we could say that the retail industry is the wheel that turns the global economy. Round and round it goes. Yet, when mentioning consumerism, we often get a very negative impression. As if the world has gone bad. How can the world go bad, when the economy goes well? Does the wheel spin both ways?

I have touched on this subject on my previous entries. The moment when we, as consumers, ask for more goods, more performant, better quality, state-of the-art versions, we really confuse that poor wheel. Why? Even though we drive the economic forces that may result in a better purchasing power and life quality for us, we run the risk of stealing the same benefits from other people in other parts of the world. Or worse, we may be robbing future generations.

I am talking about the gap between the amount of resources we have and the speed through which we are using and misusing them.

Let’s take a classic example. Fast food restaurants such as KFC and Pizza Hut are designed to cater to the masses by providing food at a lower price (Global Issues, 2016). This way they are taking advantage of the economy of scale, having more beneficial prices from suppliers because of the sheer quantity that they demand.

At the same time, they create a competitive landscape putting in motion economic forces, such as the purchasing decision. Everybody’s got to eat. But what happens on the other side? Intensive breeding of livestock and poultry meant just for these restaurants. More animals means more space to house them, things to feed them, all of which can lead to deforestation, land degradation, contamination of water resources, etc.

If we were to transform this into an equation, it would look something like this:

 …for every pound of red meat or poultry or egg or milk produced equals the loss of five pounds of irreplaceable top soil from farm fields.

Another equation:

…for meat breeding one animal per day requires 190 gallons of water which equals ten times the amount of water that a normal Indian family requires per day. The sad truth is that animal farms use nearly 40 percent of the world’s total grain production (ibid.).

But this is food you might say!

We buy food, folks! It’s still on the retail side!

What does that have to do with the Future?

If we imagine the future we tend to always have these shiny, sleek qualities in mind. Everything is high-tech and functional and ordered and efficient. But this future will happen only for some people. For others, it will be messy, with masses of lands sliding away due to deforestation, limited resources of water, leading to relocation, poverty and famine. And suddenly you find yourself in Elysium with Matt Damon fighting societal inequality.

In an ideal future, all people would have access to the same resources, have the same possibilities, the same potential. Now we are digging at the roots of Marxist communism. Every way we turn a turn the wheel there seems to be a danger waiting for us.

Let’s stop the wheel. Let’s think about what we are doing and most importantly WHY we are doing! The retail industry is a powerhouse. Let it be a force for good.

If retails would think WHY they are supplying or enticing demand when it would not be necessary, their answers would be connected to the financial aspect. But future retailers…what would they say? Would they even exist? There is a precarious balance between the economical rise and downfall, sustainable development and environmental collapse. They’re all specks on a wheel and they’re turning our world.

Consumerism pushes this wheel but it can also break it. Would it be difficult to temper our needs and wants? We want so much more than any human wanted in the history of this planet and we are surpassing nature’s rhythms to supply us. What happens when demand exceeds supply? Scarcity. Economy 101. Unfortunately, this scarcity involves our home at a planetary level. And for now, it’s our only possible home.

What happens when the curtain falls?

Nobody knows what will happen, but we know for sure that the curtain must not fall. The rising awareness of consumer’s action over the environment shapes the new economic dynamics. Personally, I will pay attention to what I am buying and why. If I do need it or if 50% of the time I am just indulging myself. Because if it is the latter than I must change. Mother nature deserves more consideration. And if I can change just one person’s mind about it and that individual would change another person’s mind…well…with the risk of sounding cliché…we would change the world. So, let’s spin the wheel of fate!

This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Laura Susnea. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Laura’s primary project focusses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure.

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[Intern Insights] Digitolution: Digitalisations contribution towards a circular economy

To start, let’s check out the difference between a Linear and circular economy:

A linear economy exploits resources and puts pressure on the environment because of its reliance on large quantities of cheap, easily accessible materials and energy. It follows the “take – make – consume – waste” pattern.

Contrarily, a circular economy aims to reduce the leakage of resources and waste to a minimum. It does this by extending the cycle of use; preserving, rebuilding, and increasing the utilisation of assets or resources of any form by sharing, reusing, repairing, and recycling, thus closing the loop.

As good as this sounds, in reality, it’s still a fantasy. Even though some steps have been taken to bring our world closer to a circular economy, for now, there is a huge gap between the theoretical concept and the practical appliance. It is predicted that the annual consumption of minerals, fossil fuels and biomass double by 2050.

Implementing the Circular Economy requires multi-level governance and actions at local and international levels. Other challenges to overcome are the reluctance of people to adapt to new business models that point away from ownership, such as the sharing economy, and the significant changes needed in consumer behaviour and habits at all levels [EPRS, 2016].

Before going into the topic of how digitalisation can contribute towards a more circular economy, let’s talk about the complexity of a circular economy, using food wastage as an example:

To illustrate customer behaviour changes, think about an apple. Would you buy an apple in a supermarket if it had a brown spot? You would pick the shiny red apple next to it even if the other apple still is perfectly edible.

Did retailers adapt to the customer’s behaviour, not selling imperfectly shaped or blemished food or did they shape the customer’s purchase behaviour by not providing the option?

This is just an example within a complex supply chain, of a system that has evolved and captured consumers and retailers alike.

In our linear economy, the production of food that remains uneaten occupies 1.4 billion hectares of land, an area bigger than Canada, and close to 30% of the total agricultural land available. Next, to an immense amount of water, energy, fuel, fertilisers and pesticides that are used to grow food, agriculture uses up space to grow crops for which rainforest is clear-cut. Food wastage exacerbates this problem for no reason [FAO, 2013].

Next to food loss, which is unintended due to a lack of knowledge of farmers or food damage, steps where food waste happens, meaning throwing away edible food, occur at the process, retail and final consumption stages due to behaviour and legal restrictions such as many countries not allowing retailers to donate expired still edible food.

Whilst there are so many steps where food is wasted, it’s sad but true that in developed economies, the highest percentage of total food wasted, almost 50%, happens at household level (Determinants of consumer food waste behaviour. Two routes to food waste. Appetite, Stancu et al, 2016).

Amongst others, reasons for this are social trends such as an increasing number of single households, more woman working but also declining food prices that change the shopping routine (Food waste prevention in Europe, Priefer et al, 2016).

The processing phase further contributes to 30% of food wasted [Tagesanzeiger Zurich, 2016]. Needing to deliver what supermarkets and thus, the end-consumer wants, at this stage, the bad apple is pre-sorted from the shiny apple. Logistics and packaging further add up waste: for example, crooked cucumbers are thrown out, as they need more space than straight cucumbers during transport [Hatz, 2013].

To my surprise, food waste at the retail stage is relatively small, fluctuating per country. Nevertheless, retailers play a crucial role, being the “interface” between producers and consumers. Retailers are getting more and more aware of their role in educating consumers and the positive impact they can have on consumption, usage and disposal, reducing food waste, supermarkets are in control of food promotions that nudge a consumer to buy food not needed.

So, for the circular economy fantasy to become true, we have far to go.

Just looking at one piece of the puzzle, and just talking about a few factors that shape the human food supply chain as it is today, deep changes are needed at every link chain to not only reduce food wastage but preventing it. Ranging from educating farmers, improving post-harvest management, optimising package processes, to changing the consumers’ behaviour.

Aside from environmental benefits, a circular economy comes along with advantages such as the creation of new jobs and an innovation drive across many sectors, due to the need to redesign materials and products for a circular use [EPRS, 2016].

So, how can digitalisation contribute towards a more circular economy?

Combining digital developments such as intelligent assets – physical objects that are able to sense, record and communicate information about themselves and/or their surroundings – with the circular economy principle provides room for new innovations. Objects with embedded information technology, for example, smart cars or smart energy systems, will reshape the way people make, use, and reuse assets. It is predicted that by 2020, the number of such objects quintuples.

In a circular economy, global economic developments are decoupled from finite resource consumption. Intelligent assets increase asset utilisation and cycle use length, which creates new sources of value.

Sensors will gather data about the device location, the device condition and the device availability:

  • Location: Real-time knowledge of the location of a car aids to optimise route planning, which reduces vehicle wear and extends the cycle use. Through knowing the location, shared assets can be localised, which increases the utilisation.
  • Condition: Knowledge of the condition of a car can help to change user patterns to minimise vehicle wear and to take predictive maintenance prior to failure, which extends the user cycle. This information then aids to make founded decisions for improving future loops.
  • Availability: Data on an asset’s availability could lead to a shift in the way products are used as transparency about supply and demand is boosted. Information of available parking space is sent to a driver, which saves driving around looking for space, reducing vehicle wear and blocked roads.

Knowledge of availability furthermore features the reuse and repurposing of assets that are no longer in use and also contributes to sharing assets by automatically connecting available assets to the next user.

Also read this article: Retail Customer Service: Reality of Retail Industry

[WEF, 2015].

To close the loop, back to food waste:

Intelligent assets with sensing technology are improving the agricultural sector enabling greater output with less input. The agricultural sector is becoming very high-tech and software based. Digitalisation will help to overcome land and resource productivity challenges by enabling monitoring soil nutrients, better pest and disease control, increasing the yield per square metre without using more fertilisers, pesticides and fuel [WEF, 2015].

A digitalised supply chain where location, condition and availability play a role to be optimised, will improve the steps from food being harvested until reaching the end-consumer – bringing us a step closer to the circular economy.

“Failing to reap the benefits that the Internet of Things and the circular economy present, is the biggest waste of all.“ – Kenneth Cukier

This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Alexa V. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Alexa’s primary focus is in digital marketing.

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On-the-Job Learning in the Hospitality Industry

Does on-the-job learning really work? During my first internship at The Ritz-Carlton, there were these internal events every month. During these events, several managers of the hotel would tell their inspirational stories and share experiences with the interns. They explained how they climbed up to management and that they questioned the need to actually study hospitality management.

I remember our Duty Manager talking about his career path: how he started as a dishwasher at the restaurant and after several months became a waiter. After two years, he was a Supervisor at the restaurant and three years after that he became the restaurant manager. After having, managed the Ritz’s hotel restaurant for several years, he wanted a different direction and applied to become Duty Manager.

Obviously, his application was approved. He was a Duty Manager for many years before he got promoted to Director of Rooms. (I just checked his LinkedIn profile and it looks like he’s made a move to Director of Rooms in Koh Samui, Thailand. WOW!) What a career already, and all without completing high school.

After hearing a story like that, you start to question if that’s what you want to do: do you want to have a high position managing a hotel, and do you even need a degree in Hospitality Management for that? Well, according to this guy you don’t. He learned all of it through experience, ‘on the job’. Imagine the looks on the faces of all the interns sitting in the room and listening to his story. I mean all of us – myself included! – were students at top hospitality schools like Hotelschool The Hague, Cornell, and Lausanne. These schools are all very expensive and this guy was telling us that you don’t even need a degree in Hospitality Management to get a managerial position in a five-star luxury hotel. Ha, well, that was all very motivating!

If you ask me, this guy had luck on his side and worked really hard. You hear more stories like this in the hospitality industry, all about gaining experience and learning on the job. This got me wondering are: learning on the job and experience, actually the same thing?

On-the-Job Training: What is it?

When it comes to training a lot of managers use the on-the-job learning as a preferred training method. What do we mean by this?

Let’s see what on-the-job learning means. The employee is trained at the place of work while this person does the actual job. Most of the time a trainer or experienced employee (manager) serves as the “instructor” using a hands-on training (coaching on the spot). It tends to be combined with and supported by formal classroom training. However, because it takes place during and in the place of work. it’s not an actual learning process. This is where managers make a mistake: they think that on-the-job learning is the performance of a new task without any guidance.

In a previous article, I wrote that we do learn from experience, especially when it’s a bad experience since we don’t want to go through it again. However, is the ‘learning’ the individual – aka new employee – gets and interprets always what the manager wants or expects?

When you start your new job without any direct support or guidance it can be frustrating for both the “learner” and the manager. The managers may think that they provide enough or proper guidance, but actually fail to follow a basic coaching process, which actually makes a difference and rushes the learning process.

According to Mike Morrison (2014): “Learning is something that individuals achieve as the result of an experience, not something we do TO people.”

What he means is that if we want our new people to learn specific aspects of the job, we actually need to train them in those specific things.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of On-the-Job Learning?

Advantages of this training method are that the employee gets used to their new working environment. They get to use their new tools and equipment to carry out their new function. This is way better than learning and simulating these aspects externally.

Furthermore, the new employee gains more confidence since they ‘practice’ under the direct supervision of a trainer (the manager). They can guide them directly and are on hand to point out any mistakes and give feedback. With this training method, the new employee is integrated in the company way quicker and easier. From a finance perspective, it is also more cost-effective. Since during this training, skills and knowledge are informed according to the company’s needs.

It’s not a shortcut or a cost-cutting method since if not performed efficiently by the ‘instructor’ there is not much training. There are some risks there. As people often forget that ‘teaching’ is actually a skill itself and many managers who serve as trainers for the new employees are not qualified. Furthermore, the on-the-job training can actually take longer, since during a normal work day there are a lot of daily interruptions, like telephone calls or distractions from other people. Also, these trainings are often rushed as the manager wants the new employee to get up to speed as soon as possible. Likewise stuffing too much new information in a short period of time will not work, since the employee will most likely forget half.

A technique that embraces the on-the-job learning method is the 70:20:10 Model. It holds that 70% of their knowledge is related to experience, 20 percent of interactions with other and 10 percent from formal training (classroom style). This model was created in the 1980s by three types of research and authors who were researching the key developmental experiences of successful managers globally.

Nowadays, this model is still considered to be of great value to serve as a general guideline for organisations globally who seek to maximise the effectiveness of their learning. The creators of the model believe that the hands-on experience (70 %) – aka on-the-job learning – is the most effective and beneficial from both sides. As the new trainees learn from their mistakes and receive immediate feedback. If they are trained properly.

To conclude: on-the-job learning is an effective training method if the managers are actually skilled in training new employees.

 

This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Paula van Staalduinen. As part of our internship programs undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Paula’s primary project focuses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure.

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[Intern Insights] Imagining the Future: Value Perception vs. Environmental Impact in the Fashion Retail Industry

Why did humans become the leading species of Earth?

We did two things:

  • We ranked the importance of things surrounding us, giving them value
  • We changed the environment according to these value perceptions

If we look back at the proto-humans, thousands of years ago, and judged them based on the current principles of survival, our assured conclusion would be that they would not survive. Nature did not equip them with sharp claws, poisonous teeth, or hard-shelled exoskeletons. How could they possibly go up against apex predators when countless species of mammals have done so and disappeared?

The one advantage that humans have had is the fact that they wanted more. More food, more heat, more comfort. Although nature did not equip them with features that enabled them to easily achieve it, humans took it for themselves by changing their environment. That still holds true for today!

Value Perception

Nowadays, people expect speed, transparency, and immediate gratification in/with any service or product they purchase. Taking technological advancements into consideration this may seem an easy process. However, to get what we want, we transform our environment, and not always in the best of ways.

Take a look at the fashion industry, we notice that this sector has one of the most drastic impacts on the global surroundings. This makes sense, considering that it is a $3 trillion global industry. Making abstraction of the social issues it supposes and the community sustainability principles it must uphold, the fashion industry starts its environment impact with one word – ‘fiber’.

Here are some dramatic facts about fiber processing:

  • ‘Approx. 70 million barrels of oil are used yearly to create polyester fiber, the most commonly used fire in clothes today.’
  • ‘It takes 200 years for polyester fiber to decompose.’
  • ‘More than 70 million trees are logged yearly and turned into fabrics like rayon, viscose, modal and lyocell.’
  • ‘Plastic microfibers shed from our synthetic clothing into the water supply account for 85% of the human-made material found along ocean shores, threatening marine wildlife and ending up in our food supply.’
  • ‘The apparel industry is the second biggest polluter of freshwater resources on the planet.’
  • ‘A quarter of the chemicals produced in the world are used in textiles.’

(Conca, 2015)

The question is why do we need to invest so may resources into the creation of fiber. True, we number 7.2 billion people now, but it is not our numbers that pushed this change (Conca, 2015). It is our value perception. We want more, we want newer, flashier, more complex, and instant products and services. And if it lasts one or two years, that’s ok, because a better version is right on its heels and we are going to buy that one. Durability, consistency, stability, preservation, these features are no longer sought after.

You might ask yourself why that is so important. Not so long ago, all the products available on the market were handmade. Hours were put into their development and so, because they were not instantly available, they were cherished and their durability appreciated. Now, the speed of consumerism drives a hard-competitive edge and nature by itself cannot keep up without artificial support. What does that mean?

Environmental Impact

Considering the current energy expenditure, we realize that the highest amount is for the least eco-friendly fibers.

For instance, linen is woven from the fibers of the flax plant and it is one of the world’s oldest textiles, as old as 7000 BC.  It is white, lightweight and durable, gentle on the environment, consumes the least of energy, water and pesticides. However, it takes more to weave it and is more expensive. On the upside, it is more durable and more gentle in the contact with the body (Conca, 2015).

Fashion Value Perceptions - Comparative Chart

Cotton, however, is advertised as one of the most natural, high quality fiber. It is used in 40% of clothing and requires large amount of water, 2.6 % of the global water use and is chemically dependent, using 24% of all insecticides and 11% of all pesticides globally (EcoWatch, 2015; Hermes, 2017).

Polyester and nylon are made from petrochemicals and by nature they are not biodegradable. They need the highest amount of energy in their manufacturing, but they also emit large amounts of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas. Its impact on global warming is almost 300 times that of carbon dioxide, the most ubiquitous greenhouse gas (EcoWatch, 2015).

The next step from the fiber is to give it the desired color. Dyes processing is becoming a concerning issue in Indonesia, where the Citarum River is considered one of the most polluted rivers in the world. All along its banks there are hundreds of textile factories (EcoWatch, 2015).

The end of the life cycle in fashion is when clothes are not needed anymore. With the rising of fast-fashion chains like Zara and H&M, weekly fashion has become the norm (Hermes, 2017). Trends are changing too fast for nature to keep up with the expected demand on its own, and as we buy more, we throw away more. Clothing waste reached new peaks in U.S. in 2014, where the average person discarded 32kg of clothing annually. Approximately 85% of them reach landfills or incinerators. In China millions of tons of unused fabric go to waste each year when dyed the wrong color. Taking into account that 41.3 million tons of fiber are processed there and account for 53% of the world’s total production, this paints a grim color on the textile industry. Although clothing recycling is rising, currently it cannot face the environmental challenges that fast-fashion creates (ibid).

Conclusion

Change is good, it’s what made us who we are today. But I believe we are sufficiently advanced nowadays to understand the consequences of our action on an environment that expands throughout the whole planet. We want more, we want to fit in, we want self-achievement, we want to promote a certain image, because today’s battle of wits comes through value perception. And we want to be valuable in the eyes of our peers. The easiest way to achieve this is through fashion statements. What we wear, what we show other people, with what we are associated, this decides our status in society, our worth. The problem is that we are changing these values so fast that there is no time for the environment to absorb the impact.

It’s simple, today’s value perception is reduced at the power we have over others. Powers is the easiest obtain through accumulated wealth. Wealth comes through the development of businesses. Business need the required services and products to exist. But power over nature we have not. And what we should strive for is a co-existence in harmony. That can only be achievable through the shift of our value perception. Durability over speed. A well-made blouse will still be a blouse in 5 years. It should last 5 years! It will fulfill the same function in 5 years! And by changing the fashion trends we are making it useless in 2 weeks.

We became the apex predator of this planet by transforming the environment to suit our needs and wants. We created our own claws, our own poison, our own shells. But there is no one else to challenge us anymore. And despite that we keep wanting more in the detriment of all other creatures that share our planet. The force of nature is the ultimate power and I am not sure we can become winners by tackling that. I may want to look good now, but I also want to live on this planet when I’m 80. Will nature allow me to do that in 50 years? Will nature even allow humanity to exist in 100 years? Food for thought!

This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Laura Susnea. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Laura’s primary project focusses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure. 

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[Intern Insight] Imagining the Future: Evolution of Sustainability in the Retail Industry

The retail industry is an extraordinarily dynamic sector. Sometimes it becomes hard to identify the key players and key trends that shape its future. In the previous blog entries, I have discussed the technological and socio-cultural factors that would influence it. However, another key factor to take into consideration is how retail industry impacts the environment and all relevant stakeholders.
Perhaps all the buzz about sustainability is receding, as it becomes mainstream, but its effects are still quite noticeable. The retail industry represented approx. 6% of the global GDP in 2015 (BEA, 2016). Therefore, any sustainable practices adopted by this industry would rebound worldwide. So, who is actually affected?

Customers

Consumers are very aware of the negative changes happening in the worldwide environment. As a consequence, they have adopted a particular purchase behaviour. The top sustainability purchasing drivers worldwide are:

Products being made by trustworthy companies/brands (72%)
Product recognized for health and wellness benefits (59%)
Product made of fresh, natural and organic ingredients (57%)

(Nielsen Global Survey of Corporate Social Responsibility, 2015)

This means that consumers have to build a trust relationship with the brands before considering a purchase. Trust comes through transparency and providing information, which have become the public’s most sought after marketing and promotional tools. Consumers are asking themselves: ‘How was this product made?’, ‘Who made it?’, “In which part of the world was it made?’, ‘In what conditions was it made?’. Customers’ conscience is seeking answers in the issue of how consumerism is affecting the surrounding environment. After all, me and any other customer, we go to a store to purchase, but we leave wondering if we did the right thing? (Fashion Revolution, 2016).

This rise of conscience can come from simple things as – ‘I like the packaging, but how many trees were killed for this to look good?’ to seeing a commercial emphasizing the company’s/brand’s participation in social commitment (Nielsen Global Survey of Corporate Social Responsibility, 2015). Consumer education is done through multiple means but it’s important to find a specific uniformization in its sustainability principles.

Employees

The top promoters and advertisers of a company’s sustainable practices are the employees. Labour force needs both to be developed through a sustainable way and itself to adopt a sustainable approach towards the working lifestyle.
First of all, employees are not only the people that serve us in stores. They are also the people further down along the supply chain. The people who transport the products, the people who assemble the products, the people who create the products, the people who provide the raw materials. So, what does it say for a company if its product materials are of the best quality, but the products were assembled or obtained by workers in conditions akin to the definition of modern slavery. This social issue is especially noticeable in Asia, where Syrian refugees in Turkish factories supply to brands as Marks & Spencer and Asos, Burmese migrants in Thailand’s poultry farms, workers on tea plantations in South India as well as textile mills, and palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia (Eco-business, 2016). They face terrible working conditions, often with small wages and no social benefits, under the duress of being expatriated.

Slowly moving from the origin of the products towards the end of the line, the distributer’s labour force problem constitutes in small wages, high turnover and low training investment in training and development. People are more interested in doing the right thing when the right thing is done by them. Investing in employees’ development in order to improve the quality of human resources can result in lower turnover and higher sales due to customer satisfaction. Furthermore, providing fair remuneration is considered still a high-performance stimulant.

Companies

At this stage, companies themselves must change their attitudes, top-down approach. They must create the environment for dialogue and understanding, through transparency and development programs.
Sustainability issues such as waste, global warming, carbon emissions, water shortage, waste of energy, they are caused by human activity. Therefore, logic dictates that humans themselves must change in order for their actions to change. However, in the current social context, humans are more focused on their wellbeing through their working lifestyle, and cannot focus and their action’s impact.

Taking into consideration this point of view, companies must focus their sustainability initiatives both on nature-origin related issues as well as the social origin. And it does not only mean the modern slavery in India but as immediate as the employee in the corner store that is struggling to maintain a normal life.

A Silver Lining in Sustainability

A possible solution comes through technological advancements.

Now it is easier to track tiers of suppliers further down the supply chain. The carbon footprint can be measured and processes can be easily adjusted in order to meet sustainable strategic goals.
Fair trade and labour issues awareness are supported through heavy social media activity by worldwide interested parties.

Employee performance can be easily trackable and accurate training can be provided through e-learning platforms.
All is not lost! However, it is primordial that retail companies realize the advantageous role they play in educating society regarding the environment! It’s time to change the world and retail players can set off an unpreceded domino effect for the good of the human kind! We are waiting!

This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Laura Susnea. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Laura’s primary project focusses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure. 

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