NRWC2014: "Closing the Green Gap: What can the retailer do inside the store?"
The 4th Nordic Retail and Wholesale Conference (NRWC) took place on 4-6 November at Stockholm School of Economics ("Handelshögskolan"). It was hosted by the Center For Retailing (CFR) at Handels. The owner of the conference was the Nordic Retail and Wholesale Association (NRWA), a Scandinavian retail research network started by "Handels Utvecklingsråd" (HUR) and "Hakon Swenson Stiftelsen". There were about 100 participants, for 68 extended abstracts (12 full papers submitted); as well as two keynote speakers: Ann Carlsson (CEO of Apoteket) and Praveen Kopalle (ass. editor of Journal of Retailing and Journal of Consumer Research).
I really enjoyed the friendly atmosphere among Nordic academics, as well as how CFR organised everything smoothly. There also was an inaugural Doctoral Colloquium for the PhD students, which turned out to be really useful to learn from senior researchers but also network with other doc students. The best was that all PhD candidates participating at the colloquium had the opportunity to chair one of the conference sessions. We also met Praveen Kopalle for an informal but very insightful chat about his own academic experience and current marketing research opportunities.
NRWC2014 had 3x3 parallel sessions per day, with Digitalisation and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as the biggest retail research issues. There is a lot of interesting studies going on at other universities, which could contribute to my own project on green marketing and consumer behavior:
Ethical consumption apps (ShopGun, GrönGuiden, FairTradeApp, and others, ...) help consumers to get information in-store (barcode scanners) to make informed purchases, share their ethical choices/behavior on social networks, geo-localise ethical/fair shops, and it creates a new routine of sustainable consumption.
Sustainability is the second consumer motive for wellness consumption.
Internal CSR is not a common practice: e.g. Clas Ohlsson employees do not think sustainability is a key issue, even though there is a Code of Conduct at the Corporate level. But consumers want facts, transparency, store involvement (stories, examples).
The sustainability trade-offs at the corporate-strategy level should be more investigated.
Climate-friendly food choices (= low GHG emissions) can be increased by communication in weekly store-flyers.
Food waste from retailers is a common practice, but there is a lack of understanding of its underlying aspects (e.g. expire date, overproduction, redistribution, etc).
I also presented my paper co-authored with Mikael Ottosson and Lars Witell: "Closing the Green Gap: What can the retailer do inside the store?"
I explained the Green Gap, (i.e. consumers do have a high concern for the environment but a de facto low green shopping behavior), and I briefly detailed the experiment, before presenting the results in length.
The next NRWC2016 will take place at Aarhus University, Denmark. Until then, thanks to the conference chairs at CFR, Handels: Fredrik Lange (chair), Sara Rosengren (co-chair) and Jens Nordfält (co-chair).
But there are some communications issues that linger between companies and consumers. While 71% of consumers read and follow instructions on how to use products with environmental claims, just 66% go so far as to deal with disposal instructions. And only 41% do additional research on proper disposal--presumably because 85% of those surveyed think that it’s the company’s responsibility to make sure consumers know how to use and dispose of so-called "green" products.
The Gap Between What Consumers Say And Do About Green Brands | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation
“That opportunity is to meet the financial and business goals or requirements that as a by-product help the environment. In other words, expand the focus of Green IT to that of economics and improving on resource effectiveness and the environment gets a free ride, or, Green gets self-funded. The challenge is what I refer to as the Green Gap, which is the disconnect between what is talked about (e.g. messaging) and thus perceived to be Green IT and where common IT opportunities exist (or missed opportunities have occurred).”
