The New Retail Regulatory Norm, and What Business Needs to Do About It

In recent years, increasingly savvy NGO advocacy campaigns and socially responsible investors (SRIs) have directly motivated fundamental change across sectors, by encouraging retailers and consumer brands to stake out new sustainability policies across their global supply chains.

For example, Greenpeace’s Detox campaign quickly prompted apparel brands to focus on eliminating the discharge of hazardous waste from their operations in Asia and Latin America.  The Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition, changing tactics from legislative advocacy to a market campaign, skillfully motivated two of the largest retailers—Walmart and Target—to adopt landmark chemicals management policies.  At present, Sierra Club and ForestEthics are applying pressure to change beverage-makers’ fuel sourcing choices for their corporate vehicle fleets.  In perhaps the most successful campaign of recent years, energized advocates pushed the seemingly immovable pulp and paper industry to adopt unprecedented zero-deforestation commitments. 

These are just a few examples. Consumer brands face mounting pressure from advocacy stakeholders to further change their procurement standards in energy, minerals, water, agriculture, chemicals, and other commodities.  Business has never been more closely scrutinized by external stakeholders and the accountability bar has never been higher.

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Brendon Steele is Senior Stakeholder Engagement Manager at Future 500, a global nonprofit specializing in stakeholder engagement and building bridges between parties at odds to advance systemic solutions to urgent sustainability challenges.