“Better Retail, Better World”: A commentary on British retailers and the sustainable development goals

Date01 May 2019
Published date01 May 2019
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1910
COMMENTARY
Better Retail, Better World: A commentary on British retailers
and the sustainable development goals
Peter Jones |Daphne Comfort
School of Business and Technology, University
of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK
Correspondence
Peter Jones, University of Gloucestershire,
Pallas 103 The Park Cheltenham
Gloucestershire GL50 2RH, United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Email: pjones@glos.ac.uk
The British Retail Consortium's Better Retail, Better World initiative launched in 2018
and looks to mobilise the retail industry to make a leading contribution to the United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This short commentary paper out-
lines the features of this initiative and offers some reflections on some of the chal-
lenges British retailers seem likely to face in looking to contribute to the
achievement of the SDGs. These challenges include the strategic prioritisation of
SDGs, issues of measurement and metrics, communicating the retailers' position on
the SDGs to consumers and the stakeholders, the retailers' financial commitment to
the SDGs within a difficult trading environment, and fundamental tensions between
sustainability and economic growth.
1|INTRODUCTION
The high profile launch of Common Groundin 2016 (Jones, Comfort,
& Hillier, 2018) saw six of the world's leading marketing and advertis-
ing companies put their collective weight, and more specifically, their
creativity, strategic skills, and global reach, behind the United Nations
(UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As such, the marketing
and advertising industry could be seen to be responding to the UN's
call for businesses to rise to the challenges and opportunities gener-
ated by the SDGs. More recently, at the national level, the British
Retail Consortium (BRC) launched its Better Retail, Better World,ini-
tiative to mobilise the retail industry to meet some of the biggest
global challenges of the coming decades highlighted by the UN, includ-
ing modern slavery and decent work, sustainable economic growth,
inequalities, climate change and responsible consumption and produc-
tion(British Retail Consortium, 2018a). Further, the British Retail
Consortium (2018a) announced that it would use the widely
recognised SDGs as a framework, clear, transparent and measurable
goals developed with businesses and campaigners are at the heart of
the initiative.
In the past, academic commentators (e.g., Jones, Comfort, &
Hillier, 2007; Jones, Hillier, & Comfort, 2013) and pressure groups
(Friends of the Earth, 2011) have questioned the genuine commitment
of British retailers to sustainability. In advertising its 2012 BiAnnual
Conference on Business and the Environment, Globe, a notforprofit
organisation, posed the questions is sustainable retailing an oxymo-
ron?and is the overarching need to reduce consumption simply at
odds with the very foundation of retailing?(Globe, 2012). However,
Alice Ellison and Peter Andrews, both from the BRC, described the
new initiative under the banner headline Why the retailing industry
is taking a leading role in delivering the SDGs(Edie.net, 2018). With
these thoughts in mind, this commentary paper outlines the Better
Retail, Better World initiative, offers some reflective thoughts on
some of the challenges the British retail industry may face in looking
to take a lead in contributing to the SDGs.
1.1 |Leading retailers and the SDGs
In March 2018, the BRC (2018b) heralded the launch of Better Retail
Better World under the headline the retail industry is taking action to
build a better, more prosperous and sustainable world.More expan-
sively, the BRC argued (2018b) put simply, this action will mean fur-
ther safeguards against people falling into the modern slavery trap
by paying to get a job, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, defor-
estation and waste sent to landfill and more support for people from
underrepresented demographics to progress in employment.26 of
Britain's leading retailers including, Aldi, Asda, Boots, IKEA, John Lewis
Partnership, Kingfisher, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Next, Sainsbury's
and Wilko, though not Tesco, Britain's largest retailer, signed up to the
initiative. The British Retail Consortium (2018c) claimed retail is one
of the first industries to take collective action in this wayand
reported as part of the project, retailers will share knowledge and
best practice, and publicly disclose progress on these goals.In
Received: 25 November 2018 Accepted: 26 November 2018
DOI: 10.1002/pa.1910
J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1910.
https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1910
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of6

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