What is Optera & SPS’s Retail Sustainability Collective?

Tim Weiss, CEO and Co-Founder of Optera, explains the thinking behind the collective.

“For too long, sustainability teams have been going it alone, often in a siloed function trying to build separate, and sometimes duplicate, processes and programs from scratch,” he says.

“The Retail Sustainability Collective will enable sustainability teams to tap into existing networks and processes within their organisations – streamlining emissions management and making it a core part of business operations.”

Why are supply chain emissions so high for retailers?

The extensive and intricate nature of global retail supply chains is a major reason for their high emission levels.

Powered largely by non-renewable energy sources, these networks span extensive processes that include the extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, packaging, and distribution.

The advent of globalisation, coupled with the consumer demand for swift deliveries, necessitates extensive transportation across vast distances using trucks, ships, and airplanes, all of which are often inefficiently fuelled.

This situation is exacerbated by the consumer push for fast fashion, lower product costs, and frequent new product introductions, which collectively accelerate the production cycles and compound the environmental footprint.

Given these complexities, systemic changes are essential for retail organisations to effectively manage their substantial energy use and improve their overall data visibility and emission management capabilities.

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