The topic of the time is retail sustainability

DN Sustainability Report
Retail companies have a prominent role to play to act responsibly and sustainably. Image: Supplied.

For decades, emerging climate-related trends—rising air pollution, melting glaciers and even the epidemic spread of disease—have led to increased environmental awareness among both the general population and organizations around the world. 

Retail companies have a prominent role to play, along with significant opportunities to act responsibly and sustainably, as they sit at the center of a complex ecosystem that includes various suppliers, service providers, financial institutions and consumers.

Each link in the chain offers opportunities to drive sustainability and grow revenue.

As a result of the increasing desire for more sustainability, consumers are probably the most important influencing factor driving retailers to focus on sustainability and explore long-term sustainable strategies.

Sustainability-conscious consumers are a highly interesting target group for retailers since they are typically in the middle of life (both at work and in their private lives), live predominantly in urban areas and have a medium to high shopping budget. In addition, they like to use technical innovations and solutions to shop as effectively as possible.

In order to attract and retain these desirable consumers, retail companies are enriching their product range with regional and sustainable articles from traceable supply chains.

They’re also focusing on waste avoidance and energy savings through the use of renewable energy, which can lead to significant cost-saving effects. Cost savings of 20%, for example, have the same effect as a 5% increase in revenue.

Store IT also contributes to retailer sustainability. The store is an important point of contact during consumer journeys—they can make their purchases directly on-site, pick up items ordered online and, if necessary, return them. 

Facing—and embracing—the changing retail environment will require retailers to accurately map consumer expectations while preparing for changing consumer behavior.

A holistic approach to driving change can ensure long-term success. 

Diebold Nixdorf designed Storevolution™ to support retailers in the rapidly shifting modern world. We see four essential milestones retailers must address moving forward in the quest to keep their stores relevant and competitive: consumer centricity, store digitization, high connectivity and store as a service. Our Storevolution approach provides retailers with the flexibility to respond to slight changes or even to global transformations through an IT environment that enables satisfying shopping experiences for consumers at the lowest possible TCO for the retailer. 

IT serviceswill only become more essential in retail. Dedicated, proactive service processes such as remote monitoring and support, predictive analytics and proactive maintenance, can support sustainability by ensuring that possible IT failures are detected at an early stage, reducing field service engineer visits and interventions.

Efficient, optimized checkout solutions can underpin sustainability initiatives, especially when they’re designed with sustainability at the forefront throughout every phase of the product lifecycle—from product planning, development, production, logistics, operation, service and maintenance to the return and recycling of the POS. Environmentally-friendly components have to be used and energy efficiency as well as longevity have to be guaranteed. 

The new DN SeriesTM BEETLE combines the benefits of design, modularity, serviceability and optimized TCO. This new portfolio of POS products takes our development philosophy of offering the latest cutting-edge technology, improving the energy balance of the systems, sparing resources and cutting the retailer’s operational costs, to the next level.

At every step of the way, retailers have new opportunities to be more sustainable. As the future becomes increasingly digitized, and consumers set the bar higher and higher for each retail experience, it’s an issue that will only rise in importance. Will your retail organization be ready?

Learn more about how your retail organization can drive sustainability—download our playbook now.