Strategies for more sustainable retailing
‘Retail Futures 2022’ is the result of a collaborative research project between Forum for the Future, Unilever and Tesco.
Through four radically different visions of the future, Retail Futures 2022 explores many of the issues the UK retail sector will have to face in the years to come. Taken together, the four scenarios provide valuable tools to help develop strategies for more sustainable retailing in times of radical change.
Vertical farm
In one of the scenarios, a bright glass building shimmers in the setting sun, crowned with wind turbines and coated in solar panels. No-one lives there, it used to be a car park. Now it's a vertical farm, a shining example of the new urban agriculture - climate controlled, filled with fruit and vegetables, and even a few pigs. It generates all its own energy, harvests water from the rooftop and markets produce on the ground floor to local businesses and residents.
Bartering
In another, communities are increasingly turning to bartering and other peer-to-peer exchange schemes to cope with an economic slowdown. Many consumers have become traders in their own rights, making a living through selling goods and services online directly to others.
Automatic message to the retailer
In the ‘my way’ scenario, people have stopped shopping altogether - at least for everyday staples. Instead customers can receive milk, bread, pasta, washing powder and toilet tissue whenever they are needed, triggered by messages sent automatically to the retailer direct from their cupboards and fridges.
These scenarios aren't science fiction: the future could contain elements from all of them.
If you would like to discover more about how the retail world might look in 2022, download your copy of the report below.
