How Can Retail Organizations Drive Sustainability With Data?

In the midst of the disruption caused by the global pandemic, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the sustainability goals. They choose the retailers to shop with and what products to buy. According to recent research, 72% of consumers across 20 countries believe that sustainable shopping has become crucial due to COVID. On the other hand, 39% of consumers put it in the top three purchasing concerns. It clearly signifies that corporate values and customer expectations are driving more conscious policies and spending to benefit the planet.

It’s time that the retail industry should develop strategic sustainability transition plans focused on value creation. Prioritizing this aspect can help them address the problems of food and energy wastage and ensure optimized operations.

Internet of Things (IoT) helps retailers maintain the quality and safety of their food using the minimum amount of energy. It comes with data-driven IoT sensor systems that can transform sustainability through proven reductions in food and energy wastage from temperature monitoring and energy savings.

How does data help retail organizations hit sustainability targets?

Retailers are pushed to highlight the grey aspects of their value chains to strengthen credibility and prove how they are delivering on sustainability. Therefore, data is crucial for sustainability efforts.

From direct energy consumption in stores and warehouses; to CO2 emissions from supply chains and manufacturing; to the effects of resource procurement, a lot of valuable data can be generated in these processes. Analyzing these data and taking responsive action can help retailers to ensure optimized results. In short, it plays a crucial role in identifying, measuring, and managing the environmental impacts of a retail business.

For further understanding, here’s know how data helps retail organizations meet their sustainability targets:

1. Reduce carbon emissions and energy wastage

To accurately measure carbon emissions, retailers have to understand energy consumption across thousands of devices, facilities, processes, and locations. Tracking future progress and implementing sustainable practices can help them know a full picture of carbon emissions and ensure overall reductions in energy consumption.

2. Minimizing wastage and optimizing supply chains

By leveraging data, retailers can overcome supply chain sustainability problems, including inaccurate demand and inventory planning, manufacturing inefficiencies, packaging or product surplus waste, and more.

With the integration of data in disparate internal systems, partners and suppliers, and external public sources, they can create sustainable and resilient supply chains.

Not just this, data also offers real-time visibility and advanced energy analytics that enable retailers to drill down into key sustainability metrics, benchmark their progress against other industry players, identify and mitigate risks, and improve production quality.

3. Informative decision making

Retailers are finding answers about how their current operations impact the environment and how their business will be affected by climate change in the future. With the help of rich datasets, new AI and machine learning models, and smarter analytics, retailers can get insights and predict outcomes around sustainability. It helps them to make informed decisions that stay on track to future goals.

Consistent, auditable, and reliable data is crucial for internally monitoring and reporting on sustainability goals. It also serves as the basis for transparent and relevant external communications with customers.

Scope, speed, and scale of data also matter!

Granular data from thousands of devices, facilities, processes, and locations can become overwhelming. Analyzing it at the speed and scale to make meaningful information is a challenge. IoT technology comes as a feasible solution to solve this issue. It offers data-driven sensor systems that sort huge quantities of data into relevant and useful information.

Leverage IoT technology to ensure sustainability

IoT allows us to take timely action before problems turn big. With this technology, retailers can receive actionable insights on how to improve energy performance and the health of their stores. It also sets up controls based on the feedback that the sensors collect.

With the implementation of IoT, retail stores can ensure:

• 40% reduction in food wastage with temperature monitoring
• 30% of total net energy savings through peak load optimization and reducing overall energy consumption
• Maximizing energy efficiencies for HVAC automation systems and much more

Get accessibility to relevant data with Zenatix IoT solutions and ensure sustainability for your retail store

The retail industry is constantly diversifying and growing. But, it is also facing significant challenges when it comes to ensuring sustainability. IoT technology can solve these issues and allows for the better functioning of your retail store. With the installation of IoT data sensor systems, you can get access to useful data and make informed decisions for sustainable results.

Connect with Zenatix to implement IoT solutions and transform your retail store into a smart building. Reach out to us today!