All posts by Norman Cescut

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Green packaging: here’s some news

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In our ECOFFEE experience, Green Packaging and waste management are two of the most difficult to handle issues for a retailer who wants to approach a greener and more sustainable business. Just a couple of years ago, it was very difficult to find packaging that could be both resistant, green and easy to recycle or compost. Now life has been made easier by smart companies which are offering to retailers plenty of products to satisfy the most demanding client: from corn cups to sugar-beet takeout containers, degradable packaging is forecast to expand an impressive 13.6 percent annually to $685 million in 2014.

Now let's talk about two very different kind of packaging, coffee cups and pizza cardboard. Coffee cups are not that common in Italy, where coffee is still serverd in the traditional ceramic "tazzina", but everywhere else in the world, it is a must for those who want to sip the hot drink while driving to office. The Repurpose One Cup  is a new insulated hot cup that is 100 percent certified compostable. The design requires no sleeve, uses 65 percent less CO2 than a disposable coffee cup to produce, and can be composted in 90 days in an industrial facility. If the cups are thrown away with regular trash, they will degrade in the landfill just like food waste. Traditional insulated cups are made by adding additional layers of paper; however, the One Cup keeps coffee (and other beverages) hot by applying patented insulation material to a single wall cup made of FSC-Certified paper.

Talking about pizza, here's the "Salvapizza", a prototype developed in Italy by a pool of experts. Salvapizza is made of white cardboard printed with food ink and this prototype allows consumers to heat the pizza in the microwave. Thanks to the side slots, the pizza "breathes", ensuring the right kind of ventilation during the heating process, hence preserving the pizza fragrance. In the prototyping of Salvapizza, special attention was paid to the possibility of recycling the used container. The cardboard can be in fact easily divided in two parts: the upper part can be detached and easily recycled in the paper waste container. A simple idea, but that can help recycling a lot of waste material, thinking that each year, the Italian production of cardboards for pizza sums up to almost 620 million units. (Source: Crispgreen and Marrai A Fura)

Green Marketing 3.0 not that successful case history: Pepsi Raw

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In a previous post we talked about Green Marketing 3.0. Here is a very intersting story about a not that successful case.

In 2007, Pepsi launched a great cola called Pepsi Raw in the UK: a fantastic packaging and a great taste,containing no artificial preservatives, colours, flavourings or sweeteners. By replacing corn syrup with cane sugar, Pepsi managed to reduce the calorie content of a 300ml bottle from around 120 calories to around 90 calories. It all came with a great on-line and off-line marketing campaign and in 2009 Pepsi Raw included a Twitter tag on cans and asked consumers to log-on to the microblogging website to share their thoughts on the soda in 140 characters or less. The last Twitter feed dates January 2010 and at that date Pepsi Raw had only 1293 followers. It was not a great success, especially the rollout to grocery, and the product had to be withdrawn from the UK market.

Sad story, but this teaches that marketing to the retail sector can be tricky for big corporations too- we only hope that Pepsi will not give up in their attempt to offer to consumers a healthier and greener cola.

Green Marketing 3.0: what is it about?

DESITA, ECOFFEE, fashion retail, food retail, Fresh Worldwide Press, retail, retail fashion, retail food, sustainability, , , , , ,

Marketing, as you all know, is what enables product to be seen and purchased by consumers. For those who are in the retail business, marketing is a science to master in order to reach success and profit – I add: for more than a year!

Something I always read to those retailers that are entering the world of “green”, is a very interesting article about Green Marketing written by Jeff Dubin a couple of months ago. For those who are interested in reading the full version, you can find it at Jacquie Ottman’s Greenmarketing.com blog. Here a few key sentences by Jacquie: “To really succeed on a wide scale in America, green products either need to establish their superiority on conventional, non-green product features such as effectiveness or price, or make green more relevant to people’s everyday lives….

If green marketers can build the case for how their products are healthier for baby and Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and.., then the greenness of a product becomes a primary benefit rather than a secondary one and the higher hanging fruit now becomes more attainable. That’s Green Marketing 3.0.”

I do agree with that, and you?

When Zero is a great result

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I  suggest to everybody interested in what big corporations are doing about sustainability to download the State of Green Business report by Greenbiz.com available online.

For those of you who have little time and want to hear the good news first: many big coCourtesy of Naem.orgrporations, from Xerox to Kraft, from Procter and Gamble to Coca-Cola, are working hard at reducing if not eliminating the waste originated by the manufacturing process. Companies learnt that cutting waste can yield multiple savings, together with a better image and a greener environment.

But -here's the bad news – there is no generally accepted definition of what "zero waste" means. For some companies zero waste might include also incinerations and other technologies that many "green professionals" will not define as sustainable and eco-friendly ones.

As we always stress, a standardization of sustainability practices is a need for a better and more efficient communication with consumers and with stakeholders, so that to avoid a word that we don't like at all: greenwashing.(Photo courtesy of naem.org)

Here's a new breed of consumers: the CITYSUMERS

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Retailers be aware of this growing segment of consumers which will become each and every day more and more important: the CITYSUMERS. According to Trendwatching.com, Citysumers are "The hundreds of millions (and growing!) of experienced and sophisticated urbanites*, from San Francisco to Shanghai to São Paulo, who are ever more demanding and more open-minded, but also more proud, more connected, more spontaneous and more try-out-prone, eagerly snapping up a whole host of new urban goods, services, experiences, campaigns and conversations".

The Trendwatching February brief describes this trend with all its social and cultural implications, together with an interesting showcase of companies whose products have been designed specifically to satisfy CITISUMERS' tastes and needs. Very interesting. (Photo courtesy of Workerman)

Does sustainability pays? Yes

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Whenever I talk with a client about sustainability, a question arises “Does sustainability pay?”. The answer is with no doubt YES! There are researches available online showing that when customers are offered a choice, they do prefer eco-friendly products and “punish” not so sustainable brands asking a much lower price. Obviously, what companies willing to invest in sustainability must understand is that a sustainable strategy goes hand in hand with a communication strategy – otherwise consumers will not perceive the added value during the purchasing process.

A recent survey conducted by the Uk consumer organisation “Which?” showed that between 74% and 96% of the people surveyed were unaware of the big names behind 10 popular ethical brands. And, once they found out, of those whose opinion changed, more had a negative reaction than a positive one. “Consumers are being misled,” said one respondent while another commented: “I feel conned.” One reason behind this negative reaction is that interviewed were worried about large companies being more concerned with profits than ethics.

What manufacturers must really understand is that consumers are willing to buy sustainable products but at the same time are going to punish any non-ethical behaviour by asking for a very reduced price. The future of retail and of sustainability lies in the ability of producers to understand this and to act accordingly.

7-Eleven embraces sustainability

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As we at ECOFFEE are always saying, sustainability in the retail business is not a trend but it is a must if you want to be sucessful in the future. And when we read that giants such as Wal-Mart, Whole Foods Market, Castorama and Tesco, are actually changing their policies and store design to follow a more sustainable business we wonder when this will happen in Italy.

Today, our attention was caught by a very interesting article on the NYTimes about 7-Eleven convenience stores in Japan where fluorescent light bulbs have been replaced by the soft glow of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, that consume half the energy and last much longer.

The 7-Eleven Japan program also includes photovoltaic panels on the store roof, and light-reflecting floor and sensors that automatically adjust the lighting.

The article also points out that this is going to be a very expensive program, being a green 7-Eleven store as much as 30 percent more expensive to build than a more traditional one. But Japanese customers are now more eco-conscious and shopping in a greener store can be more appealing to them. (Photo courtesy of Voice)

Green roofs and gardens for sustainable shopping malls

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I was recently reading about a shopping mall in Toronto that is going to expanSiam Paragon Shopping Mall green interior designd also including a sustainable food court and a green roof and I asked to myself: "Are there many shopping malls using green roof as a sustainable (and I think very stylish) way to control their energy consumption?" I made a quick search and I found that in 2008 in Upper Providence, Pennsylvania, a 400,000-square-foot shopping mall installed a 2.3 acre  green roof to prevent storm water runoff. It seemed to me centuries ago, and a very remote location for something that even in 2011 looks like science fiction.

But the most amazing example of a green shopping mall is the Siam Paragon Shopping Mall in Bangkok, Thailand, designed by the world known Patrick Blanc in 2005. The Siam Paragon shopping center in features a lush, rainforest-like cascade of ferns, vines, sedum and moss in various shades of green, yellow, red and purple. The greenery surrounds the building’s 6-story elevator shaft to dazzling effect, enjoying all the shopping mall visitors for a great sustainable shopping experience. (Image via: Pseangsong + pingmag)

What do consumers are searching for is the old, fashionable..quality!

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Two days agoNRF 100th Annual Convention, at the NRF 100th Annual Convention in NYC, Claudio Del Vecchio has been asked whether he agreed with statements by Micheal Porter that consumers have become more savvy, demanding, and difficult to satisfy. Del Vecchio disagreed, stating firmly that customers are not more difficult to satisfy. In his role as Chairman and CEO of Brooks Brothers, Del Vecchio observed that consumers are simply much more aware.  They are no longer looking for a fast buy. They take their time, look for quality and see their purchases as investments. Consumers are just more focused on what the real value is.

The next step to better understanding their consumers, Del Vecchio explained, is integration between customer data and social media. He even went so far as to say that social media is becoming more important than having information about your customer.  When your business is being discussed on social networks, Del Vecchio said, it’s the friend of a friend that is going to grow your business. The key though, is giving your customers the tools they need to be able to sell your brand to their friends. He advised retailers to become better publishers so that their customers have what they need to become  your sales force. (Courtesy of NRF blog)

The retail business in year 2015? Just ask Nielsen!

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Every now and then, I go back to the old the reports published by company leader in the market analysis and forecast, to see whether they did a good job – and it was worth buying thCPG Nielsen Reporte report – or it was just a "storytelling" exercise. When I read the Nielsen's report about the state of CPG (consumer packaged goods) industry in 2015 I just said: "Ok, I think there's something missing.." They wrote about mass supercenters and e-commerce experiencing the most dollar share gains through 2015. Drugstores, mass merchandisers and convenience stores will witness an increase in dollar sales, but will also experience share losses. Consumers will do their shopping via smartphones and digital and social marketing will be leading a company success and so on. But one thing was really missing, and this was sustainability. Wal-Mart is one of the leader in the retail business and they are taking big steps towards sustainability, do Nielsen think that they are wrong and by 2015 this issue will not be of much importance? Comments are welcomed! (Photo source: Flickr, Mazda6 (Tor)