RILA launches Retail Horizons project to empower sustainability

Arlington, Va. -- The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and global sustainability non-profit Forum for the Future have launched a project to empower sustainability initiatives, Retail Horizons. The project is being launched ahead of the RILA 2014 Retail Sustainability Conference held from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2, in Minneapolis. Click here for a two-minute video on the program.



Retail Horizons is a program to support the industry’s drive to sustainability, and was made possible with the support of sponsors Target and Unilever. It is the culmination of a year-long collaboration between about 50 retail and consumer product brands and is designed to provide retailers with the tools they need to take action to safeguard their future, protect our environment, and improve the lives of their customers, workers, and suppliers.



“I am proud that the RILA sustainability community, composed of about 50 of the leading retail brands, came together to learn from one another, identify opportunities to grow and innovate together, and promote sustainability,” said Adam Siegel, VP of sustainability and compliance at RILA. “The world is changing rapidly in ways that have already had profound implications on the retail industry. Technologies like the internet and mobile devices will enable retailers to exist everywhere; consumers’ expectations around transparency, service, speed, and experience will continue to expand; resources, such as water and raw materials, are likely to become scarcer and more expensive; and data will be ubiquitous. To adapt and grow, retailers can use sustainability as a framework for innovation.”



The project will be formally launched at RILA’s Retail Sustainability Conference with four ‘futures scenarios’ videos and a free toolkit, to an audience of 450 retail sustainability and environmental compliance professionals. The attendees will then have a chance to dive deep into the materials through three interactive two-hour work sessions on the Future of Stores, Future of Products and Value Chains, and Future of Consumers & Employees.



“The tools that we have developed through our work on Retail Horizons can help companies in the retail industry think through which challenges are most critical to them and how to tackle them to bring about the change we need for a sustainable future,” said Helen Clarkson, director at Forum for the Future US.



For more information about the conference, visit RILA.org/rsc, and to see more information about Retail Horizons (including the toolkit, which will be available to download on Sept. 29) go to RILA.org/future.