Climate change is here and, if we don’t do something about it soon, we’re all heading for a very bad time indeed.

That, at its most simplistic, is an executive summary of the announcements made by the UN last week. The quality Sunday papers screamed that it was an urgent call to action at the same time as they filled seemingly endless column inches with details of how we can make our winter escape to the snow. The fact that, in the long term, the one may preclude the other was obviously a minor detail. Here was a commercial opportunity.

Much the same trait can be seen in retail. As we move into the season of goodwill, our shop windows are filled with displays commanding us to pay attention to the gift-giving imperative. Daylight hours are in short supply for the next three months, so even supposing that windows might exist without artificial lighting, there is little chance of this happening, because you can’t look at things at night unless there is very substantial illumination.

And yet, if you ask around, almost every retailer has a policy aimed at cutting back on emissions and waste. Some of these are very much more tangible than others. At the top of the tree, Marks & Spencer, Tesco and probably Sainsbury’s have all, in different ways, been tackling the problems associated with energy use head on within their stores and are undoubtedly making a difference. Whether you look at the windmills found outside certain Tesco stores, the low-energy lighting in M&S branches or the Sainsbury’s recycled shopping bags, there are, it appears, almost limitless ways to contribute.

Many of those actively involved are following multiple initiatives that add up to even greater savings and consumers will benefit, one supposes, in the medium to long term. The problem is, there are an awful lot of retailers that seem content to claim they are green by sending out e-mails asking whether you need to print them out. At its most extreme, the note on the web site of one of the UK’s largest international retailers saying that it has placed 160 sq ft (15 sq m) of solar panelling on the roof of a new 540,000 sq ft (50,000 sq m) warehouse in Italy smacks of sheer tokenism.

We are constantly informed that shoppers need to be made more responsible and this is true. The same applies to retailers, however, and on the in-store evidence of all but a very few operators in the sector’s top echelon, a lot more still needs to be done.

Topics