Retailers greenwash, say third of consumers

Retailers are failing to persuade consumers of their sustainable practices, new research suggests. Such is the scepticism of greenwashing that only 3 per cent of consumers think that retailers are open and honest about their socially or environmentally-responsible actions. A third of those surveyed believe that they exaggerate their green credentials to curry favour with their customers. This is bad news to the majority of retailers who genuinely believe they are making a concerted effort to make their business practices more sustainable.

The research commissioned by BT and performed by Datamonitor and YouGov at the end of 2007, found that 56 per cent of businesses think they are taking significant steps to improve their impact on the environment and communities, with a further 28 per cent saying they are doing everything they can.

It's not just shoppers who think it's all a greenwash, even employees are sceptical of their own employers' green credentials. In the retail sector, nearly a third of employees do not believe that the organisation that they work for is environmentally and socially responsible. They tend to think that they only take action when forced to by suppliers or customers and nearly 40 per cent say that their employer is doing too little.

The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) says that retailers need take the lead in sustainability in both their directly controlled operations and supply chain. Action taken by the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, in their supply chain, for example, has a direct effect on global consumption patterns. The SDC says that retailers' stores and operations need to be fitted for sustainability with targets to send zero waste to landfill, be carbon positive, minimise resource and energy consumption, operate low carbon logistics, have green roofs and contribute to better local places and communities.

There are major commercial pressures for retailers to get their house in order. Last year, over a quarter of consumers turned down a product or service from a supplier they believed did not have a good sustainability record, and 60 per cent said they would spend extra on a product that was environmentally sound.

It's not just the green efforts of retailers that are getting the cold shoulder from consumers. According to the research the financial services industry was seen as the least sustainable, while -- perhaps surprisingly -- utilities were the identified as the most environmentally friendly.

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