INDUSTRY: Wholesale and Retail Trade

Supply Chain Management

Responsible supply chain management is the process of establishing environmentally friendly and socially constructive practices across supply chains. This can be a complex issue for wholesalers and retailers to tackle, often involving multi-tiered supply chains with individually relevant sustainability issues and divergences in monitoring. Responsible procurement may involve assessing levels of pollution (air and water), biodiversity loss, water usage, child labour, forced labour and health and safety. Smaller firms may seek to unify under sustainability commitments to generate collective pressure. Find out more about our supply chain audit tool, FutureConnect.

Waste

While posing significant challenges to traders and wholesalers alike, waste is a core sustainability topic for businesses in this sector. It is a complex issue to tackle, with recent knowledge highlighting how, for example, recycling practices are useful but less effective than is commonly believed, with large amounts of energy and resources required for their fulfilment. The most effective way to reduce waste is to minimise its initial creation, improving both environmental impact and stakeholder relations. Wholesalers should assess where single-use products are used and what their lifecycle looks like, eradicating or reducing their deployment where possible. Packaging is a major source of waste generation, with eco-packaging options now abundant – be that through compostable packaging, or return scheme creations that ensure reusability.

Energy consumption

Retail traders and wholesalers require large physical spaces for the storage and sale of goods, as well as logistics centres if not using third-parties. These require large amounts of energy to satisfy operational needs rendering physical spaces an important focus point for organisations wishing to reduce scope 2 emissions. Heating, air conditioning, cooling units and lighting all contribute to significant energy usage and environmental damage – particularly when multiplied across numerous sites. By assessing opportunities for energy efficiency, powering spaces from renewable energy sources and ensuring sites utilise sustainable design can drastically reduce energy footprints and operational costs.

Transportation and logistics emissions

Whether using third-party support or a private fleet, transport and logistics sustainability are a key material topic of wholesaler and retail trader sustainability. Receiving scrutiny from buyers, end-customers and, increasingly, investors, organisations in this industry should ensure minimisation of environmental impacts from transportation. Usually petrol or diesel-powered, a wealth of electric or hybrid options now exist for delivery vehicles. Green vehicles are becoming cheaper, with charging infrastructure also being rapidly scaled to match demand. If vehicles are owned assets, firms will see sharp reductions in scope 1 emissions. Overall, the use of sustainable transportation is important to demonstrate to stakeholders how organisations consider their direct impact.

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