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Introduction Of Effects Of Global Warming, Resource Scarcity, Population Growth, And Loss Of Biodiversity In The Retail Industry Assignment
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Retailers are increasing their strategies and investment toward sustainable growth. They are re-evaluating the sustainability identification of their products and overall brand to boom with the needs of an increasingly wide range of customers. The company is looking behind this increasing focus on sustainability. M&S is a leading retail brand with a distinctive inheritance and strong brand image. They operate high quality, immense value, own-brand products, and services. This report discussed how the company M&S is operating their business in different countries and by focusing on sustainability. For customers especially millennials sustainability is an important factor nowadays (Traxler, et. al. 2020). The company should also change its management strategy to ensure employees, customers and the ecosystem protect from toxic chemicals. Climate changes have a huge impact on a company's performance in long run. The Company should adopt efficient strategies to survive in a competitive market by maintaining sustainability. The pandemic has drastically changed consumer sentiment and purchasing behavior, which will carry on shaping future shopping patterns (Hillier, et. al. 2018). Retailers are focusing on employee diversity, sustainability, and corporation to run their operations efficiently.
Effects of global warming, resource scarcity, population growth, and loss of biodiversity in the retail industry
There are different factors related to the external business environment which are having the ability to affect the company in number of ways. Marks and Spencer is an cloth manufacturing fir which is operating in the retail industry. Due to this reason the company is affecting the environment in number of ways while managing their global supply chain and international business operations. There are different factors related to sustainability, environment protection and increasing issues related to it which are having major impact on the entire retail industry and on M&S as well.
Global warming is the ongoing heating of the Earth's surface, oceans, and atmosphere which is caused by human activities. The effect of climate environment changes is being felt across the retail industry. Climate changes will gradually pose operational challenges for retailers. With changing climate patterns require adjustment for retailing, logistics, and transportation. Sea level rise and extreme weather changes take place in retail and supply chain infrastructure in danger areas have a greater risk of flooding, and raise the cost of insurance. Climate-related economic trouble has the potential for unplanned impacts on customers' spending patterns. Customer expectations are opening up opportunities for retailers to distinguish their offers and attract new consumers, with climate concern particularly marked amongst millennials. The retailers must prepare themselves to build up climate strategies that include a path to decarbonization and funding resources to pay for it (Marrucci, et. al. 2020). The company should analyze the cost in advance for financing climate change. Retail Company that produces more apparel result in polluting the environment. The majority of the company uses coal-based energy to manufacture the products, which enables carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas that has to be emitted from the atmosphere.
Resource scarcity is a situation where demand for natural resources is exceeding the supply because of the decline in available resources. Resource scarcity can lead to price unpredictability which is faced by both company and the customers. By adopting good strategies the company can reduce the cost of resources (Park, et. al. 2020). Governments worldwide are issuing new waste management and circular economy regulations and laws which include take-back legislation, eco-tax, efficient product design, and waste management. A practical attitude can help out companies to classify and deal with compliance risks in the countries of operation. The company should use its resources efficiently which includes energy, raw materials, and water in their daily operations. Marks and Spencer (M&S) which is a Retail Company should avoid wasting resources through accurate measurement and production control techniques. They should recycle waste by adopting material compositors. This retail company M&S should make changes in their product design and reduce costs with packaging, this will help them in lowering their cost of production.
The population of different countries is directly linked with the attainment of economic development. A company must consider its human resources both from the angle of assets and liabilities. A growing population means greater demand for the products but it also means a greater supply of raw materials. When a market grows it gives an advantage for the business to a steady flow of new customers whereas in a shrinking market the company competes for its existing customers (Tarigan, et. al. 2021). Handling existing customers is tough because of switching costs, and existing businesses have greater knowledge about their consumer's preferences. The population growth will increase the production in the company as the demand for the product will increase. This will also employ many people depending on the growth of the population as the company will employ new people at an organization.
Retail business plays a crucial role in biodiversity. The pandemic has put the disturbing impact on the retail industry into sharp focus and it's time for the industry to significantly diminish its contribution to biodiversity loss (Crenna, et. al. 2019). The companies should stop wasting raw materials and clean up their production. The company should use effective production methods for the ecosystem. M&S is proving that a healthy and nature-connected work and shopping environment can pay an enormous dividend in terms of safety, productivity, and business effectiveness and efficiency. The company can demonstrate that biodiversity improves performance through filling and reduced stormwater runoff.
Critical influence of sustainability on production & design in the retail industry
Sustainability can be associated with retail strategies and operational goals by reducing waste packaging which can also reduce costs of production. Customers are demanding sustainable products which include recyclable products and packaging. The retail company should offer the option to choose eco-friendly packaging and improve efficiency in the production process. A retail industry that includes clothing companies like M&S should launch a sister brand for little damaged clothes, targeting consumers who might be disposed to stitch up their clothes a little, by making them more unique and reducing waste. The environmental impact on its offerings across production and delivery can be done by supporting customer choices across products and delivery modes methods.
Customers are also demanding real, definite, and quantifiable actions to achieve these goals. The company should collaborate with a broader supply chain to survive the climate changes and demands of society. M&S should focus on supply chains that have exposure to customers' demand and with efficient production processes which protect the environment (Gardas, et. al. 2018).The company should be standard objectives and measurement techniques to follow the industry metrics and standards. The retail company should make sure that sustainable products are not just "add-ons" to the product line. They have to ensure that the pricing of the sustainable product provides distinct benefits.
Innovative business strategies
Increase the efficiency of energy use: this is an important requirement for the retail company to secure a power supply. The retail industry provides the products like fresh foods, clothing, and many more, which require high energy demand. The company should focus on the reduction of production costs which will help them to reduce energy consumption.
Use of more sustainable materials: The company should use sustainable materials in their retail business which includes recycling goods, upcycling stock, reducing waste and cost with sample making, eliminating paper receipts, exploring rental business models, reducing carbon footprints, and many more ways.
Developing new climate-friendly products or services: the retail business can control and manage the impact on the ecosystem by implementing energy conservation, waste management, recycling programs, etc. they should operate with their suppliers by developing products that feature environment-friendly characteristics. They should encourage their customers to purchase eco-friendly products and reusable bags (De Oliveira, et. al. 2020). The M&S should ensure that the internal operations of the business are sustainable.
Requiring suppliers and human partners to meet specific sustainability criteria: Retail businessmen should cooperate with their suppliers and support the development of product features enhancing the environmental attributes. Efforts such as greening the supply sequence and implementing green purchasing can persuade suppliers to develop eco-friendly products. Supply chains are an indispensable element of any global economy. The supply chain creates a social and environmental burden. Strong actions are required to mitigate these things. The company's supply chain should be responsible for societal, legal, political, human rights, ethical economic, and environmental concerns.
Updating facilities to make them resistant to climate impacts: the company should make store operations the most energy efficient by reducing energy use. They should install efficient lighting, heating, refrigeration, air conditioning, ad ventilation which can reduce climate change and cost for the company. They should focus on suppliers and Logistics companies to improve their climate sustainability performance. The M&S Company should provide more options to their customers to buy more sustainable product which includes energy efficient, durable, better material, and recyclable products.
Incorporating climate considerations into political donations: Developing countries are particularly in danger of the impacts of climate change. There is high hope for natural resources and their limited capability to survive with these impacts. The company has to ensure that its growth policies and strategies should be flexible to a changing climate. The policy guidance outlines several priorities for governments and donors. It also highlights the need to boost the capacity of the government to better appraise the implication of climate change (Romanowska and Melnarowicz, 2020). They should examine existing policies and frameworks to supply in the face of upcoming climate changes.
Impact of regulations & international codes on sustainability in the retail industry
The retail company should maintain and improve awareness of environmental sustainability principles and issues related to the ecosystem. The company uses the expertise of others in the area where personal knowledge is not sufficient to attend to environmental and sustainability issues. The company includes societal values applicable to the business operations and other social concerns related to the environmental impact. They ensure that production activity which complies with regulatory and legal requirements should be the best available, cost-effectively feasible technologies and procedures (Thorisdottir and Johannsdottir, 2020). The M&S can implement risk mitigation techniques in time to minimize the environmental humiliation. The company should make innovative products that reach a balance between ecological, societal, and economic factors while contributing to a healthy environment by building a natural environment.
Importance of sustainability reporting
A company creates a Sustainability report detailing its environmental, societal, authority, and economic goals and its progress toward achieving them. The retail industry typically describes its strategic goal and a status report of the benefits and costs of those activities. Globalization and production trends remain unsound, although sustainable development gained a lot in the past decades. The important social factor must play a leading role in identifying and implementing the sustainable solution. It has important for retail companies in achieving the goals of sustainable development strategies. Sustainable development and social dependability have emerged as a very important strategic issues for the company in virtually every industry globally. The companies in sustainable retail are taking actions that could make retail more environmentally friendly and economically responsible. Retail leaders need to bring the rest of the industry along.
Sustainability goals of M&S for 2025
(Source: Barry, 2021)
M&S is adopting environmental protection initiative to develop their value chain operations. The company can use better resource utilization in production and transportation which will lead to cost reduction and greater profitability. The company should ensure regulatory compliance to mitigate the effects of climate and environmental changes. Customers are shifting towards sustainability and are willing to pay more for sustainable products. The company should improve its production methods by taking environmental concerns (Khaghaany, et. al. 2019). Transparency can turn the company from an undisclosed business into a trust and grow a bond by boosting consumer loyalty. The company should employ and recruit talented and skilled people on the job. They should also provide proper training and workshop for them and make them aware of sustainability.
Conclusion
This report stated the sustainability report of the retail industry and how the retail business maintains its production process by making eco-friendly products and waste management. It has also discussed the effects of global warming, resource scarcity, population growth, and loss of biodiversity on the retail industry. The company should use effective sustainable management techniques in the process of production. They should use raw materials efficiently without wastage, using paperless techniques, and economically-sound processes that lessen harmful environmental impacts while conserving energy and natural resources. The report has also discussed the results of the efforts done by the company. This will increase operational effectiveness by a reduction in costs and wastage. It will also help M&S to reach the new customer in the competitive environment and also protect the brand reputation through public trust. It builds long-term business success. The company should focus on increasing competition and revenue this will help them in running their operations efficiently (Cunha and Moneva, 2018). It can collaborate with external supply chains and stakeholders to gain competitive advantages. Sustainable manufacturing methods can also enhance employee, society, and manufactured goods safety which will enhance the performance of the company.
References
Barry, M. 2021. M&S launches first major sustainability campaign as it looks to build ‘engaged trust’ [Online]. Available through: <https://www.marketingweek.com/ms-launches-first-major-sustainability-campaign-looks-create-engaged-trust/>.
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Cunha, D.R. and Moneva, J.M., 2018. The elaboration process of the sustainability report: A case study. Revista Brasileira de Gestão de Negócios, 20, pp.533-549.
De Oliveira, R.T., Indulska, M., Steen, J. and Verreynne, M.L., 2020. Towards a framework for innovation in retailing through social media. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 54, p.101772.
Gardas, B.B., Raut, R.D. and Narkhede, B., 2018. Modelling the challenges to sustainability in the textile and apparel (T&A) sector: A Delphi-DEMATEL approach. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 15, pp.96-108.
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Park, H., Lalwani, A.K. and Silvera, D.H., 2020. The impact of resource scarcity on price-quality judgments. Journal of Consumer Research, 46(6), pp.1110-1124.
Romanowska, M. and Melnarowicz, K., 2020. Strategies for innovative business in business groups. Przegl?d Organizacji,(3), pp.3-11.
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Traxler, A.A., Schrack, D. and Greiling, D., 2020. Sustainability reporting and management control–A systematic exploratory literature review. Journal of cleaner production, 276, p.122725.
