How we helped John Lewis with future visioning for sustainability
We worked with John Lewis, one of the UK’s leading retailers, to identify ways it could reduce its environmental impact by 2030
How we helped Hammerson start a sustainable retail conversation
Using our retail experience, we helped Hammerson explore collaborating with its tenants about sustainability – and proposed ideas for further engagement
The challenge: catalysing sustainability collaboration across Hammerson’s property portfolio
Hammerson plc, one of the UK’s leading retail property development and investment companies, wants to collaborate more with its tenants on creating sustainable retail centres.
Hammerson aims to be Net Positive by 2030 in four areas with the greatest material impacts: carbon, resource use, water and socio-economic impacts. As the scope of this target includes the tenanted areas of its portfolio, Hammerson recognises the need to collaborate with businesses that lease property across its estate.
Understanding that there are barriers to this, it approached Bioregional to help design and facilitate a workshop exploring the relationship between landlords and retailers - gaining insight and developing ideas for encouraging collaborative action.
The workshop informed its Reshaping Retail report, launched in November 2019.
How we helped: creating conversation for collaboration
Using our sustainable retail experience, we helped plan and facilitate a half-day workshop with an engaging agenda to open up this initial conversation. We started the day with an inspiring keynote speech and then split into four discussion tables.
With 12 major retailers represented, as well as a team from Hammerson, it was the perfect space to explore major sustainability opportunities and challenges for the sector – and what practical solutions could look like.
It also helped to identify trends emerging within the retail sector and how they impact on retail stores, such as changes in consumers’ behaviour and awareness of sustainability and disruptive business models.
The outcome: new relationships and proposed solutions for the future
The companies present said how valuable it was to be able to talk openly with one another about the common sustainability challenges they face in the sector.
We created a post-event report that shared proposed solutions to the challenges retailers face, further informed by future sector trends.
We recommended steps to take within the next 12 months, 1-3 years and 5 years for Hammerson, retailers and other retail landlords. We also identified 5 areas of key interest or potential for innovation for Hammerson to explore in more depth with retailers following the initial workshop.
Bioregional’s understanding of the sustainability challenges of different retailers made them a great partner to work with on this project. They worked closely with us to shape the workshop and provided excellent facilitation to ensure everyone got the most out of the event. The outputs and insights are helping us deepen our retailer engagement work and are opening potentially very positive collaboration opportunities.”
Louise Ellison, Group Head of Sustainability at Hammerson plc
How we helped Kingfisher increase its sales from sustainable products and services
Bioregional has worked with Kingfisher group since 2010 to help expand its range of sustainable products and services. As of 2022, these represent 44% of its annual sales
How we helped intu explore the future of retail
We helped Intu, the company behind some of the UK’s biggest shopping centres, explore the future of retail by reviewing plans and providing inspiration for its proposed multi-use retail space