The sustainability of stores supports the sustainability of their messages
Seen in Belgium, Munich and London
Lidl recently opened an eco-friendly store in La Louvière, Belgium, which is equipped with a 12-metre wind turbine, 25 solar-powered street lights, a green façade that promotes biodiversity, a communal vegetable garden, an insect hotel, connected beehives and two eco-grazing sheep. In London, Timberland recently opened a flagship store designed using materials derived from industrial production scrap and featuring mannequins made from bio-resins. Educational tables provide customers with information on the green initiatives the brand has set up. In Munich, Adidas has built a new 370 sq m store devoted to outdoor activities, whose design relies on resource-efficient and recyclable materials.
What to think of it?
Shops have long been designed to offer their customers unique experiences. Today, retailers are designing them in such a way as to demonstrate their commitment to addressing climate challenges. This is also a good way for them to update the types of message they tend to put out and to reach out to new generations of consumer, particularly Millennials and Gen Z, who are more attuned to these issues than their elders. These eco-designed stores, some of which are even capable of producing their own energy, confirm that the principles of sustainability are now infiltrating the consumer world: originally synonymous with destruction (the word comes from the Latin “consumere”: to use up, eat or waste), consumption is gradually becoming synonymous with circulation and responsibility, as demonstrated today by the growth of the second-hand and vintage markets and perhaps tomorrow by the transformation of shops into drivers of their local area’s sustainability. There was a time not so long ago when retailers were criticised for being partly to blame for the proliferation of concrete in the outskirts of towns.
Summing up
Burberry has entered into a partnership with My Wardrobe HQ, one of the UK’s leading clothing rental and resale platforms.
Summing up
Genesis, Hyundai’s luxury-car division, offers an infrared facial-recognition system that enables a vehicle’s doors to be opened in the dark. A fingerprint recognition system is used to start the car.
Summing up
Cyril Lignac now offers a subscription service for his marshmallow bears. Prices start at €28 per week and changes can be made at any time.
Word of the month
Trip Stacking : a term that describes the current trend in the tourism sector for travellers to book several holidays or trips abroad at once, in case one of their prospective destinations ceases to be accessible due to the current health crisis. This is a strategy that has been made possible by the more flexible cancellation policies that airlines and hotels have decided to introduce.
