Sustainability

Cincinnati -- Macy’s reported a series of new initiatives in its multi-year strategic program to enhance environmental sustainability, including a plan to begin replacing fluorescent fixtures in its store with LEDs.

A $500,000 grant from the Sam’s Club Giving Program will help fund an innovative program to provide technical assistance to small child care operators in low income communities.

Charlotte, N.C. will be home to the new global headquarters of Sealed Air Corp., as the global packaging company opens a state-of-the art, environmentally-sustainable campus to house its research and development facilities and corporate offices.

The $7.7 billion company said over the course of the next three years it will relocated roughly 1,300 jobs to North Carolina from its existing headquarters in Elmwood Park, N.J., and other facilities nationwide. Sealed Air employs roughly 25,000 people and is known for brands such as Cryovac, Bubble Wrap and Diversey.

Macy’s has announced a series of new initiatives in its multi-year strategic program to enhance environmental sustainability. They are consistent with the company’s sustainability principles first adopted in 2008 and implemented with increasing intensity during the past six years.

Results through 2013 include a 38% reduction in the company’s electricity usage since 2002 and a 95% adoption rate of recycled or certified paper used in the company’s marketing materials.

Washington, D.C. -- The NRF says the members of the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety have made tremendous progress in the past year, demonstrating their true commitment to safer working conditions in the Bangladesh ready-made garment industry. In an official statement, NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay said the group has made many achievements to improve the safety of Bangladeshi factory workers.

Tiffany’s long-standing CEO Michael J. Kowalski will retire from the company March 31, 2015. Kowalski, who has been a member of the company’s board of directors since 1995, will continue to serve as non-executive chairman.

The board has tapped Frederic Cumenal, currently the company’s president, as Kowalski’s successor; he will step up to the CEO role April 1, 2015.

Kowalski joined Tiffany in 1983, became CEO in 1999 and assumed the role of chairman of the board in 2003.

Washington, D.C. - The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS), the standards and technology division of the National Retail Federation (NRF), has released the Compliance Audit Interchange. The CAI is a specification that allows organizations to share compliance audit results securely with other companies who source from the same supplier location.

Electrolux president and CEO Keith McLoughlin reflected on the company's progress during the second fiscal quarter, pointing to prospects for growth.

However, net sales decreased by about 4.9% year-over-year, totaling $26.3 billion for the three-month period. That decrease was slightly smaller for the six-month period — 2%.

Meanwhile, the company posted a net loss of $92 million for the quarter. For the first six months, the company's net income of $339 million compares to net income of $1.003 billion for the same six-month period last year.