Search 
Search The Consumer Goods Forum Sustainable Retail Summit will convene sustainability leaders in London on January 29th. Ben Dixon shares a perspective ahead of this important annual event.
As London’s foggy January sets the scene, sustainability leaders will gather at The Consumer Goods Forum’s Sustainable Retail Summit (SRS) to chart a clearer path for 2025.
Reflecting on 2024, the challenges were undeniable. Described in the Harvard Business Review as “a rough year for corporate sustainability”, the landscape was shaped by political and economic headwinds, escalating compliance and reporting requirements and reshaping of corporate sustainability commitments.
Yet as the fog lifts on 2024 and we step boldly into 2025, three essential facts remain:
- Our food and consumer goods industries still need systemic changes to bring environmental impacts within the safe planetary boundaries,
- Consumers still care deeply about these impacts,
- Retailers are still uniquely placed to drive supply chain transformation, influence private and public brands, and engage with consumers.
2025: A Year for Accelerated Action
Retailers have stepped up to these challenges in recent years with impressive efforts on clean energy, low-carbon refrigeration, packaging re-design and reuse models, regenerative food supply chains, and greening transportation and logistics. But the pace of change must accelerate. How can the industry move further and faster in 2025 and beyond?
At the SRS, Systemiq will join the CGF team to explore two key accelerators: technology innovations and radical cross-sector collaboration.
The transformative power of digital technologies and “AI for X” is a 2024 narrative that is here to stay. Yet amongst the hype stories are climate technology start-ups with the vision and technologies to truly transform retail supply chains and operations. Our colleagues at Systemiq Capital, a venture capital company incubated within Systemiq, will join the SRS along with other investors and innovation companies who aim to transform retail with cutting-edge climate and nature technologies. They will share how innovative startups are solving complex issues across the value chain – from reducing carbon emissions to ensuring sustainable sourcing – while tackling the most pressing obstacles retailers face.
Cross-sector collaboration has proven to be a game change and is a raison d’être for The Consumer Goods Forum. The CGF’s Plastic Waste Coalition of Action provides an example of retailers and consumer brands working together over the last four years to accelerate progress towards a circular and zero-waste plastic packaging system – also collaborating closely with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and their New Plastics Economy initiative.
Plastic packaging is an iconic topic for the industry, and one where retailers can play an outsized role in interpreting and influencing consumer behaviour, and encouraging ambitious action by private and public brands. But it is also a topic where retailers have tended to create their own packaging rules and approaches rather than working together. This is changing, with new collaborations between retailers and brand owners on reuse models and consistent and harmonized design rules such as the CGF’s Golden Design Rules that were established by CGF member companies in 2022. Radical collaboration has the potential to drive faster progress on packaging re-design, advocacy and reuse initiatives. During the SRS we will explore how this can be achieved with sustainability leaders from Carrefour, Loblaw Companies Limited, The Coca-Cola Company, Henkel, CITEO, Reposit and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
In summary, fog is expected outside the venue – but we forecast a clear and challenging discussion between industry leaders on topics that matter for the industry and the planet. Hope to see you there!
