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Consumers in our country are becoming more responsible and expect the same from businesses. In response to this request, retail and FMCG companies are teaming up for joint projects in the field of sustainable development
Affiliate Trends
In the summer of 2019, Romir, together with the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO, studied consumer attitudes towards the topic of sustainable development. It turned out that 37% of our countries are highly likely to buy goods and services from “responsible producers”.
This criterion is most important for a young audience. According to the survey, 49% of consumers aged 18-24 are more likely to prefer “responsible goods and services.”
According to experts, society is paying more and more attention to such categories as sustainable development and the activities of companies in this direction. “The pandemic has not changed the key requirements for responsible business, but only reinforced the trends that started to take shape earlier,” says Elizaveta Ustilovskaya, Group Manager, Sustainability Services, Deloitte CIS.
It highlights several key trends – climate change, employee rights, a variety of healthy lifestyle products, responsible production and consumption of resources. “All this cannot be done without an effective and long-term partnership,” emphasizes Ustilovskaya.
New businesses often try to compete with other companies in this field, adds Natalya Zaitseva, head of the Center for Sustainable Business Development at the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO. “But the sustainable development agenda is not about competition, but about collaboration. This is about the joint creation of products and projects,” the expert is sure.
Recommendations and certifications
As a successful example, Zaitseva cites joint projects of X5 Retail Group with partners. In December 2019, the company was one of the first in the food retail industry to adopt a long-term sustainability strategy.
The document is based on the Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015. At the same time, X5 identifies several main priorities for itself – responsible consumption and use of resources, caring for employees and the community, and promoting a healthy lifestyle.
The company, in particular, became the first Russian retailer to issue recommendations for suppliers in the field of sustainable development. They include a list of voluntary environmental and social certifications, as well as a vision for sustainable packaging. The recommendations were created based on the best practices in the grocery retail sector, environmental expertise and the results of a supplier survey.
“For our company, understanding the importance of sustainability has become part of a natural growth process. We realized that by focusing only on business performance issues, it is very difficult to build a successful and sustainable business in the long term,” explains Yana Sinesyu, Director of Sustainable Development at X5 Retail Group. “It is important to hear the request of those groups with which the company interacts — customers, local communities, public organizations, the state, employees — and respond to this request by making a contribution to solving problems that are important to them.”
The company used the annual X5 Suppliers Conference as a platform for discussing a “sustainable” agenda with partners. At the round table “Sustainable Development: Joint Movement towards Global Sustainable Development Goals”, the retailer and the largest FMCG players talked about opportunities for cooperation and shared best joint practices.
In 2015, the UN adopted the global sustainable development agenda. It includes 17 goals for the whole world, including the elimination of poverty and hunger, clean water and energy, and the fight against climate change. To solve these problems, the UN proposes to unite together the state, public organizations and business.
Responsible consumption and waste reduction
One of the most relevant items on the list of SDGs for retailers and manufacturers is responsible consumption and production. This goal includes, among other things, the reduction of waste, their separate collection and reuse.
X5 has several joint projects with suppliers in this direction. For example, the Domestos brand (Unilever company) was the first in its segment to install vending machines for collecting plastic bottles in the Perekrestok and Karusel stores in Moscow and the Moscow region.
Customers can recycle bottles of any brand, and in return receive a discount on the purchase of household chemicals from Domestos, Cif or Glorix. During the year of the project implementation, more than 27 thousand plastic bottles were collected and sent for recycling.
“When we come up with our crazy initiative, other FMCG companies turn their heads – they think that we come in too early with such ideas. Therefore, we are grateful to X5: they hear us, trust us, and when we agree on something, in general, everything works out for us,” says Irina Bakhtina, Vice President for Sustainable Development at Unilever, about cooperation.
In turn, the Splat company, together with the Perekrestok chain, recently launched a project to collect used toothbrushes. Special boxes for them are installed in 808 Perekrestok supermarkets in all regions where the distribution network operates. All collected brushes will be recycled and sent to the production of paving slabs.
The project teaches consumers about proper oral hygiene through the timely replacement of a toothbrush and at the same time forms eco-habits in them, explains Ekaterina Petrenko, head of affiliate marketing at Splat. “Waste sorting and recycling allows you to save the planet’s resources and give a second life to unnecessary things,” she recalls.
In general, X5 plans to increase the share of recyclable solid waste generated in retail chains to 2023% by 95. And up to 40% – the share of processed products that have lost their marketable appearance before the expiration date in order to send them for useful use.
Healthy lifestyle and consumer education
Another direction close to grocery retail that meets the goals of the UN is a healthy lifestyle.
According to the leading nutritionist at Nestle, Sofia Bryantseov, our country, a healthy lifestyle implies a proper, balanced and varied diet. “There are no good and bad foods, we are talking about the diet. The diet should contain all the necessary food groups and nutrients. So, vegetables should make up half of a person’s diet per day, ”the expert recommends.
Against the background of the pandemic, many buyers thought about their health and remembered healthy lifestyles. As a result, consumption of healthier food has increased and X5 decided to increase the amount of healthy food on the shelves. By 2023, the share of fresh products, vegetables and fruits in the assortment of retail chains is planned to increase to 50%, follows from the company’s sustainable development strategy.
The retailer is developing its own Zelenaya Liniya trademark, placing healthy lifestyle shelves in Perekrestok and Pyaterochka. For its customers, Perekrestok has also created a Healthy Food Basket, a list of products for a balanced diet. It contains a set of products that allows you to receive the required amount of calories, proteins, fats and carbohydrates every day for a month.
The company emphasizes that they are ready to promote the principles of a healthy lifestyle and responsible consumption among their customers. Recently, for example, the Perekrestok supermarket chain, together with Danone, created an online course that covers two priorities from the X5 strategy at once. From it you can learn how each person is able to reduce the amount of waste and how to eat right. For successful completion of the course, customers receive a 30% discount on Danone products in all stores of the network.
“We adapted the course for the Russian consumer, and it was quite popular. We have a successful collaboration. The X5 team is creative and quite flexible. I like that tasks are completed quickly, with a minimum of bureaucracy and delays, ”says Marina Shalak, Danone’s external communications manager, our country.
charity track
In addition to FMCG companies, the retailer implements partnership projects with charitable and volunteer organizations. These joint initiatives also aim to achieve sustainable development goals.
For example, X5 was the first in Russian retail to start creating an infrastructure for providing food assistance using food drive technology. Five years ago, the company, together with the Rus Food Fund, launched the Basket of Kindness project. During this time, 5 tons of food were collected in X600 chain stores. More than 60 needy families in 67 cities of our country received food assistance. The retailer intends to double the number of such families by 2023.
Together with the Liza Alert search and rescue team and the Missing People Search Center, the Pyaterochka network launched the Safety Island project, which helps lost and disoriented people. In 2020 alone, 466 people returned home thanks to the project. Within three years, the retailer plans to connect all Pyaterochka stores to the project.
For each of the sustainability goals, the retailer has developed long-term plans and metrics that are integrated into the company’s business strategy. X5 believes that they can only be realized through active partnerships and dialogue with partners.
“The main thing that helps us move towards sustainable development goals is our partners, without whom we would not have succeeded in much. X5 is constantly in dialogue: we are working on joint projects, we are constantly learning about how to better recycle waste, how to work with sustainable packaging,” says Jana Sinesiu, Sustainability Director of X5 Retail Group. — We are constantly learning from our partners, developing competencies and expertise in the field of sustainable development. Dialogue helps us find the best solutions and create projects with leaders in their fields.”
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