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IJRDM 39,4

Sustainability in the global shop window


Peter Jones and Daphne Comfort
The Business School, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK, and

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Received November 2009 Revised April 2010 Accepted July 2010

David Hillier
The Centre for Police Sciences, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, UK
Abstract
Purpose The aims of this paper are to provide an exploratory general review of both the sustainability agendas being publicly reported by the worlds leading retailers and the nature of the reporting process and to offer some wider reections on the ways these retailers are currently addressing and pursuing sustainability agendas. Design/methodology/approach The paper begins with a short discussion of the characteristics of sustainability. The paper draws its empirical material from the most recent sustainability reports and information posted on the internet by eight of the worlds top ten retailers. Findings The ndings reveal that while there is considerable variation in the structure of the retailers sustainability reports, three broad sets of themes can be identied. Namely, the environmental, social and economic issues the retailers report on, how these issues are reported, and the role and importance of sustainability within companies and to their business. More critically, it is argued that the worlds leading retailers are, at best, adopting a weak model of sustainability and that in pursuing continuing growth they are ignoring the fact that the present patterns of consumption are unsustainable in the long term. Originality/value The paper provides an accessible review of, and some reections on, the sustainability agendas being pursued by some of the worlds leading retailers and as such it will interest academics and those working in management positions within the retail industry. Keywords Retailers, Sustainable development, Consumption Paper type Research paper

Consumers are increasingly concerned about their own environmental impacts, those of the products they buy and those of the companies at which they shop. These concerns focus on physical impacts such as global warming and on broader social issues such as how their purchasing actions and choices affect the livelihoods of people in other countries. The Global Coca Cola Retailing Research Council Forum (2009).

International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management Vol. 39 No. 4, 2011 pp. 256-271 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0959-0552 DOI 10.1108/09590551111117536

Introduction During the past decade the concept of sustainability has consistently moved higher up political, media, investment and public agendas. While sustainability is increasingly seen to be everyones concern, there has been growing awareness that large retailers have a pivotal role to play in promoting sustainability in that they are the intermediaries between primary producers and manufacturers on the one hand and customers on the other. Durieu (2003, p. 7) for example, argued that retailers can greatly inuence changes in production processes and consumption patterns and are positioned to exert pressure on producers in favour of more sustainable consumer choices. At the same time, many large retailers are increasingly keen to publicly report on their sustainability agendas, commitments and achievements for a variety of reasons. Thus, many large retailers have been determined to

demonstrate their interest in the wellbeing of the environment, their employees and the communities they serve, to promote the transparency of their operations, to better manage risk, to enhance brand value and to grow their market share. With this in mind the aims of this paper are twofold, namely to provide an exploratory general review of both the sustainability agendas being publicly reported by the worlds leading retailers and the nature of the reporting process, and to offer some wider reections on the ways these retailers are addressing and pursuing sustainability agendas. Sustainability The concept of sustainability can be traced back to the thirteenth century but in more recent times it appeared in the environmental literature in the 1970s (Kamara et al., 2006) and since then it has attracted increasingly widespread attention. Jamieson (1998, p. 184) suggested that most peoples thoughts about the meaning of sustainability are probably simple and grand: sustainability is about human survival and the avoidance of ecological disaster but he recognised that professional discourse, on the other hand, is complex and technical (p. 184). Dening this concept is not straightforward and a number of diverse and contested meanings can be identied. Diesendorf (2000, p. 21) argued that sustainability can be seen as the goal or endpoint of a process called sustainable development. The most widely used denition of sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 43) which Diesendorf (2000, p. 21) suggested emphasises the long-term aspect of the concept of sustainability and introduces the ethical principle of achieving equity between present and future generations. More specically, there are sets of denitions that recognise that all human beings live on one planet with nite quantities of natural resources and fragile ecosystems on which all human life ultimately depends. There are also much more all-embracing denitions that look to include ambitious social and economic goals and to meet human needs in an equitable manner. Typical of the rst set is ecological sustainability dened by Callicott and Mumford (1997, p. 32) as meeting human needs without compromising the health of ecosystems and Suttons (2004, p. i) denition of environmental sustainability as the ability to maintain things or qualities that are valued in the physical environment. The second set is perhaps most exuberantly captured in Daunceys (2009, p. 1) description that:
[. . .] sustainability is a condition of existence which enables generations of humans and other species to enjoy social wellbeing, a vibrant economy and a healthy environment, and to experience fulllment, beauty, and joy without compromising the ability of future generations of humans and other species to enjoy the same.

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More fundamentally, a distinction is often made, for example, between weak and strong sustainability ( Jamieson, 1998; Elkins et al., 2003). The former puts the emphasis on:
[. . .] developing the renewable resources, creating substitutes for non-renewable resources, making more effective use of existing resources, and/or by searching for technological solutions to problems such as resource depletion and pollution (Williams and Millington, 2004, p. 100).

The latter is focused on the belief that the demands we make on the Earth need to be revised, so that for instance, we consume less (Williams and Millington, 2004, p. 100)

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and on fundamental changes in consumption patterns and reductions in consumption levels (Fuchs and Lorek, 2004, p. 4). While sustainability has attracted widespread political support and has become applied to many areas of human endeavour, the concept has also attracted criticism. Robinson (2003) summarised three sets of criticisms. First, that the concept is vague in that it means very different things to different people and organisations. Clark (2005), for example, writing in The Times newspaper argued in the absence of any precise meaning the concept of sustainability is pointless. It could mean virtually anything and therefore means absolutely nothing. Second, that it attracts hypocrites who use the language of sustainability to promote and defend unsustainable activities. Third, that it fosters delusions in that it fails to acknowledge that the current rates of economic growth are simply unsustainable and that it draws attention away not only from the need to develop new ways of organising how people can relate to the natural world but also from the need for fundamental social and political change. As interest in sustainability has gathered momentum, a number of attempts have been made to develop theoretical frameworks connecting nature and society and to recognise that social and economic development cannot be viewed in isolation from the natural environment. Amsler (2009, p. 123), for example, argued that the contested politics and ambiguities of sustainability discourses can be embraced to develop a critical theory of sustainability. She further argued that current debates should be located within a broader tradition of social criticism (p. 125) and competing interpretations of sustainability (p. 124) and should be viewed as invitations to explore the complex processes through which competing visions of just futures are produced, resisted and realized (p. 125). Castro (2004) sought to lay the foundations for a more radical sustainability theory by questioning the very possibility of sustainable development under capitalism and arguing that economic growth relies upon the continuing exploitation of both natural and social capital. More generally Todorov and Marinova (2009, p. 1217) reviewed the models being developed to conceptualise what they described as an extremely complex concept and they presented a ve-fold classication namely: quantitative models, physical models, standardising models, conceptual models, and pictorial visualisation models. The rst two of these models tend to be restricted to specic disciplines, the third is concerned with the development and application of sustainability indicators while the other two seek to link the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability. The authors acknowledged that the conceptual category of models is very broad and they traced its origins from the work of the Club of Rome formed in the late 1960s and its report on The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972) through to much more recent work on climate change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). The pictorial visualisation models adopt a simple three dimensional representation of sustainability with the three dimensions being most commonly represented as three overlapping circles in a Venn diagram (Figure 1). Within the Venn diagram model the union created by the overlap between the three components of economy, environment and society are designed to represent sustainability (Lozano, 2008, webpage). Todorov and Marinova (2009, p. 1218) commended this model as being powerful in reaching a broad audience. In a similar vein Lozano (2008) suggested that such representations provide basic sustainability understanding, especially of the interactions of the three aspects and that they are helpful in raising awareness for the general public (webpage). As such the Venn diagram model provides an appropriately robust general empirical frame of

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Environment

Figure 1. Venn diagram model of sustainability

reference for this paper. At the same time, Lozano (2008) recognised that the model has drawbacks in that it considers sustainability to be compartmentalized and disregards the inter-connectedness within and between aspects (webpage) and that it is a mere snapshot of a moment in time, which lacks the ability to represent the dynamic process of change over time (webpage). Frame of reference and method of enquiry In order to obtain a preliminary picture of the extent to which the worlds leading retailers were reporting sustainability agendas and achievements within the public realm, the top ten global retailers (Table I), ranked by the value of sales, from the Deloitte report Global Powers of Retailing 2009 were selected for study. The majority of these retailers have a number of trading formats and have a broadly international, but not a truly global, geographical presence in that between them they are represented in 71 individual countries. The retailers are widely recognised as industry leaders and as such they might be expected to reect cutting edge thinking and practice within the retail sector of the economy. Wal-Mart, the worlds largest retailer, is listed as trading from discount department stores, cash and carry/warehouse clubs,
Country of origin USA France UK Germany USA USA Germany USA USA Germany Number of countries of operation 14 32 13 32 7 1 24 1 8 15 2007 retail sales (US$ million) 374,526 112,604 94,740 87,586 77,349 70,235 69,346 63,367 63,088 58,487

Name Wal-Mart Carrefour Tesco Metro Home Depot Kroger Schwarz Unternehmens Treuhand Target Costco Aldi GMBH & Co. oHG Source: Deloitte (2009)

Table I. The top ten global retailers

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and hypermarket/supercentre/superstore and supermarket formats and as having retail operations in 14 countries including the USA, the UK, China, Germany and Brazil. Carrefour, Metro and Tesco are listed as having retail outlets in 33, 32 and 13 countries, respectively, while two of the top ten retailers, namely Kroger and the Target Corporation, only operate stores within the USA. During the past decade sustainability reporting has evolved from a marginal practice to a mainstream management and communications tool (Global Reporting Initiative, 2007, p. 1) and Bowen (2003) suggested that the majority of large companies have realised the potential of the world wide web as a mechanism for reporting sustainability agendas and achievements. He also argued that its interactivity, updatability and ability to handle complexity adds value to the reporting process. With this in mind the authors undertook an internet search for each of the top ten retailers corporate web sites in October 2009 employing Google as the search engine. The navigation revealed considerable variation in the volume and the detail of the information on sustainability that the worlds top ten retailers had posted on their corporate web sites. Seven of the top ten retailers, namely Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Tesco, Metro, Kroger, Target and Costco, produced dedicated sustainability reports running to 109, 84, 54, 19, 33, 51 and 34 pages, respectively. One of the top ten retailers, Home Depot, provided some very limited sustainability information on their web site, while Schwartz Unternehemens Teuhand (who trade as Lidl) and Aldi Gmbh & Co. oHG, both of which are private companies, carried no sustainability information on their company web sites. These reports and information provided the empirical information for this paper and two simple approaches were used in analysing this information. First, the three dimensions within the Venn diagram model were used as a simple framework to capture and outline the sustainanabilty issues reported by the worlds leading retailers. Second, a simple grounded approach was employed to identify two other major issues emerging from the sustainability reports, namely the nature of the reporting process and the extent to which the retailers are integrating and managing sustainability within their businesses. More generally, the specic examples and selected quotations from the retailers sustainability reports/information cited below are used for illustrative rather than comparative purposes. The principal focus is an exploratory examination of the current sustainability issues being addressed by the worlds leading retailers rather than a systematic and comparative evaluation of the sustainability policies and achievements of these retailers. In discussing the reliability and validity of information obtained from the internet, Saunders et al. (2007) emphasised the importance of the authority and reputation of the source and the citation of a contact individual who can be approached for additional information. In surveying the top ten global retailers as described above, the authors were satised that these two conditions were met but noted that only two of the retailers, namely Carrefour and Tesco, had commissioned an independent external audit. Findings While there is considerable variation in the structure of the retailers sustainability reports, it is possible to identify three broad sets of themes. First, the environmental, social and economic issues the retailers report on (Table II), second the nature of the reporting process and third the status and management of sustainability within the companies and to their core business. First, in reporting on environmental, social and economic issues, the focus is generally on broad commitments and agendas, on specic

Issues

Walmart

Carrefour

Tesco

Metro

Retailer Home Depot Kroger Target

Costco

U U U U U U U U U X U U U U U U U U U X X U U U U U U U U U U X X X X X X X U X U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U X X U U U X X U X X X X X U U U U U U U U U U U X X X X U

U U U U U U U U

U U U U U U U U

U U X U U X U X

X X X U X U U X U U X U X U U U

U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U

U U U X X X U U X X U U U U U U U X X U X

Environmental Climate change and carbon emissions Energy consumption Water management Waste management Logistics Conserving natural resources Environmentally friendly products Land and property holdings Social Responsible sourcing Food safety Working conditions at suppliers Diversity and equal opportunities Training and development Health and safety Local community links Charitable giving Economic Employment creation Value for customers Supplier relationships Building shareholder value Corporate governance

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Table II. Sustainability issues retailer summaries

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objectives and targets and on progress in moving towards these targets. A wide variety of environmental issues are addressed throughout the supply chain, namely climate change and carbon emissions, energy consumption, water management, waste management, logistics, conserving natural resources, environmentally friendly products, and land and property holdings. Reporting on renewable energy, Wal-Mart, for example, emphasises its overall commitment to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, breaking this down into ten specic time-dated goals (e.g. reduce greenhouse gases at our existing stores, clubs and distribution centres based around the world by 20 percent by 2012 to 2005 baseline). However, the company then reports that that in 2007 we measured our direct greenhouse gas footprint to be 20.2 million metric tons which was an increase from 19.2 million metric tons in 2006. This contradiction perhaps reects the difculties the worlds leading retailers face in effecting reductions in carbon emissions across large and geographically dispersed trading operations. In reporting on social issues, a number of common themes can be identied including responsible sourcing, food safety, working conditions at suppliers premises, diversity and equality of opportunity, training and development, health and safety within the workplace, links with local communities, and charitable donations. Metro, for example, highlights its employee and social commitments covering employee retention, the proportion of women in management positions, retail education and vocational programmes, food donations, nutritional labelling in Europe and healthy lifestyles and provides some limited information on progress in meeting ve specic targets on some of these commitments. Economic issues generally receive more limited coverage but include employment creation, providing value for customers, supplier relationships, building shareholder value and corporate governance. Carrefours economic scorecard, for example, lists the companys 13 commitments to customers, franchisees, suppliers and shareholders, distils this down into 16 specic objectives and then reports on achievements against these objectives since 2008. The retailers tend to report separately on environmental, social and economic issues. As such the reporting process reects one of the drawbacks of the Venn diagram model namely that it treats the environments, social and economic issues as independent but there are some limited attempts to integrate two or more of these issues as, for example, in reporting on the local sourcing of food supplies and on urban regeneration projects. Some of the retailers which have retail outlets in a number of countries report on their efforts to promote sustainability within a number of specic countries but others tend to concentrate on providing a general picture of their agendas and achievements. Wal-Mart, for example, reports on the working of its open doors for our suppliers policy in Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, on its programmes to reduce energy consumption within stores in China and Japan and on its support for a campaign to ght AIDS in Lesotho. Metro reports on its initiative to roll out consumer friendly nutritional labelling on own label food products, rst introduced in Germany, throughout all the European Union countries in which it trades. More systematically Carrefour provides a quantitative assessment of progress on 17 key indicators, in some cases by geographic regions and in others by individual countries. At the same time, there is often a recognition that sustainability initiatives are more advanced in some markets than others. The Costco report, for example, focuses upon the USA and Canada but included a pledge to pursue new policies and actions to help us become even more sustainable throughout the entire enterprise.

Second, the nature of the reporting process merits attention. The majority of the selected retailers provide a simple narrative of their sustainability agendas and achievements, often illustrated with descriptive statistics. Kroger, for example, describes food safety as its top priority and outlines its bi-monthly food safety review audit of each store and its customer education programme. Costco uses a bullet point format in describing its sustainably sourced product strategy. Cameo case studies are sometimes used to illustrate general themes within selected retailers sustainability reports. The Wal-Mart report, for example, includes a number of short case studies including one concerning one of its employees establishing a recycling campaign in Pineville, Missouri in the USA and a description of the companys approach to allegations of forced child labour in the cotton elds of Uzbekistan. A number of the reports offer some sense of external approval via the use of comments typically entitled What Others Say. Sometimes such quotations carry attributed authority, as for example in the Wal-Mart report which includes the former US President Bill Clintons statement that Wal-Marts commitment gets to the larger point I have been trying to hammer home like a broken record since weve started on this climate change thing and Walmart is having a positive impact on people around the world, and we applaud their commitment to corporate social responsibility made by Amir Dossal, the Executive Director of the United Nations Ofce for Partnership. The Tesco report includes the following quotations: in terms of community investment Tesco seems very responsive and:
[. . .] so much comes down to the individual buyers as to whether the supplier has a good experience. Weve had a fantastic experience over the past two years better than with any other retailer.

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Which are attributed to an unnamed business organisation and an unnamed supplier, respectively. While retailers are unlikely to publicly name suppliers and business partners for reasons of commercial condentiality, such unattributed quotation might be seen to lack some authority. Some of the retailers seek to use external guidelines and elements of benchmarking in drawing up and in measuring achievements within their sustainability reports. Carrefour, for example, reports that its overall activities are guided by major international principles including the United Nations Global Compact, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labour Organisations Declaration of Fundamental Principles. The company also reports that its sustainability reporting is developed with reference to the Global Reporting Initiative Framework and the Organisation for Economic and Cooperation and Developments principles. More specically, Carrefours Sustainability Report includes information on the scope of the reporting process, the methods of data collection and the external auditing process which is seen to provide a moderate level of assurance as to the social and environmental performance indicators selected by the Carrefour Group. In a similar but arguably less comprehensive and rigorous vein, Tesco reports on progress against 14 key performance indicators, including for example, carbon dioxide emissions, the recycling of waste from stores, charitable donations and nutritional labelling. Overall, the lack of common and agreed reporting frameworks and standards and the use of individual case studies and selective external quotations make it difcult not only to compare one retailer meaningfully with another, but also to assess the contribution that the large retailers are making to global sustainability targets.

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Third, four of the selected retailers, namely Carrefour, Kroger, Tesco and Wal-Mart, explicitly claimed to have fully integrated sustainability into their businesses. At Carrefour, for example, sustainability is described as being the core of the companys strategy and an integral part of its management model. In a similar vein in his introduction to the Wal-Mart report, Mike Duke the companys Chief Executive Ofcer, emphasised that:
[. . .] stainability at Walmart isnt a stand-alone issue thats separate from or unrelated to our business. Its not an abstract or philanthropic program. We dont even see it as corporate social responsibility. Sustainability is built into our business. Its completely aligned with our model, our mission and our culture.

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Two of the retailers, Carrefour and Tesco, also provide some information on how they manage their approach to sustainability. Carrefour, for example, reports establishing a Sustainable Development Department in 2001 and giving it responsibility for driving its sustainability programme forward. This Department now works with local sustainable development co-ordinators in all the countries in which the company has retail outlets. As part of this management process, the company also reports on its ongoing dialogue with our stakeholders, which is concerned with identifying and anticipating the expectations of stakeholders and defusing conicts. Tesco claims that sustainability is embedded in the companys governance framework and within the company a cross-functional team of executives provides dedicated leadership on sustainability issues. Discussion The majority of the worlds top ten retailers recognise and report on a wide range of the impacts their businesses have on the environment, society and the economy. However, a number of issues merit closer attention and reection; namely reconciling competing sustainability agendas, the role of retailers in promoting sustainability within their stores ` and supply chains vis-a-vis their role in encouraging customers to make sustainable choices within stores, the way retailers construct sustainability agendas, the tensions between commitments to sustainability and resource consumption and the ways the retailers commitments to sustainability are increasingly being publicly contested. Given the wide range of the sustainability agendas and issues currently being addressed by the large retailers, it will not always be easy to align what may be competing strategic goals and decisions. At the strategic level, for example, Wal-Marts commitments to offer savings to our customers and Costcos belief that their presence in a community makes pricing better throughout the area; because when we have a tough competitor in the market place, prices come down may well threaten other commitments to ensure that, in the words of the two companies mentioned above, workers are paid well and treated well and that there is compliance with the Vendor Code of Conduct which expects our vendors to comply, at a minimum, with the applicable labor and environmental regulations of the country where the merchandise is produced. When addressing sourcing policies, retailers may have to assess whether the environmental costs of importing fresh fruit, vegetables and owers from Africa, for example, are outweighed by the social benets of trading with less developed economies. Here, retailers may have to make difcult trade-offs between competing goals. At the store level, managers are working to meet what may be ever demanding operational and nancial targets and/or to achieve performance related bonuses. They may, for example,

when facing problems in staff scheduling, put employees under pressure to work outside the hours that suit their work/life balance or refuse to release employees from their store duties for training and retail education programmes. While the selected retailers stress their commitment to drive a sustainability agenda throughout the supply chain, evidence from their sustainability reports suggested that they may be concentrating their efforts more on the physical operation of their stores and their sourcing and distribution activities, rather than on encouraging their customers to make more sustainable choices. Here, they have greater control and here too they can more easily monitor sustainability and resource goals. Outlining its Matrix of Action Points as part of its contribution to the European Retail Forum, Wal-Marts UK company, ASDA, for example, provided a number of detailed and time constrained targets for the reduction of energy consumption within its stores and water usage within its distribution depots, under the How we Sell (Eurocommerce, 2009, webpage) action point. At the same time, the company simply cites the companys free magazine as the only method of providing information for customers under the How we Communicate (Eurocommerce, 2009, webpage) action point. If consumers are to be made more aware of sustainable consumption choices, then as Doreen Fedrigo, European Union Policy Co-ordinator for the European Environment Bureau, argued visible change is needed on supermarket and shop shelves and in advertising messages (European Environment Bureau, 2009, p. 1). This, in turn, begs the question about the most effective way retailers can use marketing communications within stores to encourage customers to make sustainable choices. Reisch et al. (2008, p. 26), for example, warned sustainability communication is a highly complex and even risky activity that needs careful strategic planning and genuine stakeholder input. Research undertaken amongst a number of major European retailers by Almaani et al. (2004, p. 30), suggested that messages designed to promote sustainability need to take into consideration the average customer awareness on sustainability issues and that the message will be more successful if it conveys clear feel of a direct usefulness and advantage provided to the customer by the sustainable products compared to unsustainable ones (p. 30). More specically, Almaani et al. (2004, p. 30) identied three key elements as being essential for retailers marketing communications campaigns for sustainable consumption, namely segmentation and target information, visibility of products and of communication, and the need to use changing routines to capture attention. However, within a constantly changing and ercely competitive business environment, there must be limits to the information about sustainability that the major retailers can provide on the vast range of products they offer for sale. There must also be doubts about the retailers ability to verify such information when they are sourcing products from a large number of suppliers and producers drawn from often wide geographical areas. Furthermore, there are dangers that providing accurate and veriable information for all products drowns out the ability of consumers to make like-for-like comparisons and ceases to provide them with any useful means of comparison (Consumer Focus, 2009, p. 42). At the same time, it is important to recognise that the act of consumption is often divorced from the product that is being consumed. Dolan (2002, p. 170), for example, argued that conventional approaches to sustainability centre on the notion of the rational individual and his or her needs and wants, and neglect the signicance of consumption practices as embodying the relations between

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individuals. He also warned that the development of sustainability as a widespread practice is more complex than change in individual values and practice (p. 170). There are also issues about the way in which retailers construct sustainability agendas. While all of the selected retailers explicitly stress their commitment to sustainability, they can be seen to be collectively constructing their own denition of the concept. Such a denition is built around business efciency and the search for competitive advantage and is driven as much by business imperatives as by a concern for sustainability. Thus, while many of the environmental initiatives addressed in the sustainability reports are designed to reduce energy, water consumption and waste emissions, for example, they also reduce retailers costs. In a similar vein, the retailers commitments to their employees focusing for example, upon good working conditions, the work/life balance, health and safety at work and training and retail education all help to promote stability, security, loyalty and efciency within the workforce. The worlds leading retailers might thus be seen to have constructed sustainability agendas, which are driven largely, though not necessarily exclusively, by their own commercial interests with the focus being on efciency gains across their business operations, rather than on maintaining the viability of natural ecosystems and reducing demands on nite natural resources. This suggests a privileging of the economic interests and dimensions represented in the Venn diagram model at the expense of environmental and social issues. This in turn might be seen to reect the traditionally dominant business ideology that:
[. . .] The economy currently treats natural resources as largely inexhaustible and freely available, and tends to mop up the costs of social and environmental impacts in a range of different budgets (such as health, regeneration and social security) rather than embody them in the true cost (and therefore true value) of goods and services on sale (Parkin et al., 2003, webpage).

This approach echoes Hobsons (2006, p. 308) argument that rich and powerful groups will construct sustainability agendas that do not threaten consumption, per se, but seek to link them to forms of knowledge science, technology and efciency that embody the locus of power held by the retailers. Here, Fernandos (2003, p. 1) assertion that capitalism has shown remarkable creativity and power to undermine the goals of sustainable development by appropriating the language and practices of sustainable development resonates loudly. However, Parkin et al. (2003) stressed that shareholder value and protability is inuenced not only by product and service costs and traditional productivity measures (webpage) but also by a wider range of factors including reputation and risk management, employee satisfaction (webpage), the pursuit of sustainable opportunities and supplier and stakeholder relations (webpage) as broadly reected in the Venn diagram model. There are broader and more fundamental issues about the tensions between commitments to promoting sustainability and the continuing level of resource consumption, which is seen by some commentators as being fundamental to pursuing continuing growth. The large retailers position on growth and consumption is epitomised by Sir Terry Leahy, the Chief Executive Ofcer of Tesco, who argued that his company is seeking to create a movement which shows that it is possible to consume, to be green and to grow (The Coca Cola Retail Research Council Forum, 2009, p. 16). This approach is certainly consistent with the argument by Reisch et al. (2008, p. 2), that while moving towards sustainability is a major policy agenda, growth of income and

material throughput by means of industrialisation and mass consumerism remains the basic aim of western democracy. However, in an invited response, contained within Tescos Sustainability Report, Forum for the Future, a UK charity committed to sustainable development suggested that the next big challenge for Tesco is to address how it can grow whilst respecting environmental limits. It also argued:
[. . .] that to do this it will have to ask some big questions about what a truly sustainable supermarket looks like, develop some new business models and set and then achieve some ambitious global sustainability targets.

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Partly, this reects Jacksons (2006, p. 1) belief that the consumption patterns that characterise modern Western Society are unsustainable. They rely too heavily on nite resources and they generate unacceptable environmental benets. Perhaps, more challengingly Jackson (2009, p. 8) drew attention to what he described as the deep seated dilemma, namely that growth may be unsustainable but de-growth may be unstable (p. 8). He suggested that while the conventional response to the dilemma of growth is to call for decoupling (p. 8) he highlighted the importance of distinguishing between relative and absolute (p. 8) decoupling. The former referring to the decline of resource impacts relative to growth and the latter signifying an absolute decline in such impacts. While the worlds leading retailers might claim to support relative decoupling through their commitments to efciency, they currently show little enthusiasm for absolute decoupling which Jackson (2009, p. 48) believed is essential if economic activity is to remain within ecological limits. Reisch et al. (2008, p. 1) argued that rather than controlling consumption, recycling materials and increasing production efciency have tended to be the dominant means supposed to decouple environmental degradation from economic growth and they concluded that the policy agenda on sustainable consumption is in danger of becoming a merely rhetorical reection of concern (p. 1). More radically, Jackson (2009, p. 57) concluded a discussion of what he described as the myth of decoupling by arguing that it is entirely fanciful to suppose that deep emission and resource cuts can be achieved without confronting the structure of market economies (p. 57). This, in turn, echoes Dolans (2002, p. 180) belief that the goal of sustainable consumption needs to be seen as a political project, recognising the power relations between social groupings and between cultural value systems and his warning that this is the context within which the idea of sustainability will stand or fall (p. 180). Finally, retailers claimed commitments to sustainability have been contested within the public arena. A number of pressure groups have become increasingly critical of the large retailers, arguing that their activities are having damaging effects on the environment and its resources, on communities and on the economy. In 2007, for example, 22 prominent organisations and pressure groups including Friends of the Earth, Action Aid International, the Institute for Policy Studies and the International Labor Rights Forum, collaborated to produce a robust critique of Wal-Marts Sustainability Initiative, arguing that the companys business model makes it inherently unsustainable (Tocco and Anderson, 2007, p. 1). Responding to Wal-Marts 2009 Sustainability Report, the Corporate Social Responsibility Wire (2009, webpage) argued The pairing of terms (Wal-Mart and Sustainability) elicits strong reactions, usually falling into three camps. The oxymoron camp, for example, believe that Walmarts business model of overdriven underpaid factory workers pumping out

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cheap goods into thousand-mile supply chains that feed a consumption-based society inherently and unavoidably conicts with sustainability. In a similar vein the UK-based Tescopoly web site, launched in 2006, is an alliance of organisations concerned with the negative impacts of supermarket power. Its home page includes the following message of welcome: growing evidence indicates that Tescos success is partly based on trading practices that are having serious consequences for suppliers, farmers and workers worldwide, local shops and the environment (Tescopoly, 2009, webpage). The large retailers vigorously refute the vast majority of the accusations made against them and they consistently argue that their continuing success reects their ability to respond effectively and efciently to customer needs and aspirations. Conclusion The majority of the worlds top ten retailers publicly report on their commitment to sustainability and they argue that by strategically integrating sustainability into their businesses, they are better placed to provide long-term growth and nancial security for all stakeholders and to enhance their market position and reputation. However, the authors argue that the worlds leading retailers denitions of, and commitments to, sustainability can be interpreted as being driven as much by business imperatives as by commitments to sustainability. Thus, the retailers focus is upon making efciency gains across their business operations rather than on maintaining the viability and integrity of natural ecosystems or on reducing demands on nite natural resources. More specically the focus is generally on reporting separately on environmental, social and economic issues rather than on the integrated approach which is a the heart of the Venn diagram model. As such the worlds leading retailers are, at best, pursuing a weak rather than a strong model of sustainability. That said, the worlds leading retailers might be seen to be merely at the start of a potentially long and difcult journey towards sustainability. Marks & Spencer, one of the UKs leading international retailers, but not one included in this study, for example, has been reported as arguing that currently no business in the world can claim to have come remotely close to sustainability (Barry and Calver, 2009, webpage). This in turn suggests the need to develop a more dynamic Venn diagram model which incorporates greater coalescence (and possibly greater separation) of the environmental, social and economic components as well as the exibility to accommodate change over time. More critically, the authors suggest that the large retailers commitments to sustainability are couched within existing business models centred on continuing growth and that current policies are little more than genuections to sustainability. The worlds leading retailers are thus effectively and conveniently ignoring the fact that the present patterns of consumption are simply unsustainable in the long term. As such, these retailers seem likely to continue to attract potentially increasingly vocal and sustained criticism from those who are concerned about what Jackson (2009, p. 6) described as an emerging ecological crisis that is likely to dwarf the existing economic crisis.
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