Book Review - Greentailing and other Revolutions in Retail

Innovation Book Review: "Greentailing and other Revolutions in Retail"

By Neil Z. Stern & Willard N. Ander 2008
Wiley 241 pages $49.95

The authors of 'Greentailing' ('green retailing') have many years of U.S. retailing experience through their consultancies, seminar work and clients such as McDonalds, Proctor & Gamble, BP and many others. By helping retail businesses with improvement strategies, Stern and Ander have a broad knowledge of successful and not-so-successful examples to draw on in this book. Companies from traditional 'bricks & mortar' stores, on-line retailers, product suppliers, shopping centre owners, direct and multi-channel retailers and consumer groups are presented in this large collection of green innovative strategies to meet the needs of today's environmentally-aware consumer.

Having a career in the Australian retail industry, I was drawn to this book to learn how climate change will impact on businesses and consumer behaviour and what the best companies are doing to improve their green credentials while reducing their own carbon footprint. Many Australians have changed their habits through recycling, reducing water consumption and using alternative energy like solar power. However, this U.S. based book was an eye-opener to me on the cultural differences between our country and the States regarding climate change. From a range of consumer and business surveys, Stern and Ander deliver a snapshot of U.S. attitudes towards the environment that shows 40% of Americans are not interested in the environment at all with low prices being the main driver of consumer behaviour. Many U.S. companies also see 'greentailing' as a consumer trend rather than an important environmental and economic change to business and society. The concept of climate change itself is not really supported, I feel, by the authors in this book as they move from sitting-on-the-fence about the environment to promoting the various excellent green innovations in U.S. retailing to their core reader audience - American retail business management.

The book 'Greentailing' is, therefore, not about improving U.S. retail companies just for the benefit of the environment but to show businesses how to promote their company/brand as green, attract new customers and grow profits without cutting prices or doing further damage to the environment. The authors do acknowledge the dilema faced by retailers to serve their shareholders first (increase sales and profits) while trying to do what is right in a world that is growing more concerned about the impact of consumerism. So Stern and Ander try to juggle both responsibilities by giving some very good examples of 'greentailing' by big and small U.S. businesses (eg. Wal-Mart's '21st Century Leadership', Office Depot's 'The Green Book', Whole Foods' 'Reduce, Re-use, Recycle' motto since 1980). Other strategies include store internal efficiencies (L.E.E.D.), the rise of ethical purchasing (Nike), recycling (Interface Flooring), various environmentally-friendly products and initiatives and local produce sourcing. There are many positive points in this book that can be easily picked up by a retailer/business looking to benefit from 'greentailing' through reducing energy costs or re-designing stores while attracting customers with new innovative products that use less harmful chemicals or promoting better corporate social responsibility policies at home and around the world.

Apart from greentailing strategies, the book also provides information on the changing demographics of the U.S. consumer and how companies can meet their needs in the future. Such retailing trends include the change from 'do-it-yourself' to 'do-it-for-me' services, selling services rather than just products (home theatre installations not just TV sales), the creation of the medical super-store (a doctor, chemist, optomatrist and X-ray under one roof), the merging of financial banking, insurance, pension/superannuation and wealth management and the rise of brands creating their own retailers (Apple and Sony). The Internet and non-store retailing is another innovation that continues to grow globally to over $300 billion sales annually. Once seen as a bolt-on strategy, the Internet will continue to change the way people purchase, communicate and live while helping businesses to gather information on consumers and competitors, improving business efficiencies and grow sales.

Overall, 'Greentailing and other Revolutions in Retail' is a good account of the current state of U.S. retailing, the future trends in consumer behaviour and the growing impact of the environment in the minds of customers, retailers, government and society in general. I found many examples of innovations and initiatives that may not yet exist in Australia so I would recommend this book to small and large businesses looking to improve their own green credentials and advantage over competitors in the short-to-medium term. I hope the next book from Stern and Ander offers more information to retailers/suppliers of the longer-term impacts on business in ignoring climate change rather than trying to financially benefit from it.

Dale Stohr
Chisholm Cranbourne.