Archive for October, 2007

Don’t worry about the aviation industry worry about cement!

Concrete production
I found it fascinating to read an article in WAN (newsletter 17th October) regarding the co2 emissions in the cement industry. In a shock announcement the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) made up of the heads and senior staff of 18 leading companies that produce more than 40 percent of the planet demands confirmed that a staggering 5 percent of the world carbon emissions were caused by cement production, greater than the entire aviation industry. Last year china cement manufacturing alone created 540,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, greater than the entire pollution of the UK.
As we progress towards carbon neutral and carbon negative buildings, the issue of embedded carbon within buildings will become ever more prominent. Embedded carbon within materials (carbon produced in the manufacturing process) has yet to come to the forefront of government policy with policy still directed towards the final product and it’s use, but inevitably the manufacturing process will become part of the overall carbon emission.
Although it doesn’t appear relevant to the retail sector bear this in mind, policies are already being considered to display the efficiency of a retailers greenness with categorised certificates to be displayed within the retail unit stating the properties carbon emission. As the consumer becomes more green aware it is inevitable that they will require their retailers to be eco-friendly. Act now or you may lose a considerable chunk of your consumer market.

A lesson from Liberty in visual merchandising

A few days ago we had a spare hour or two to look around Liberty. The best thing was really the visual merchandising throughout the store. There wasn’t anything particularly groundbreaking just good old fashioned attention to detail and great product displays of great products. Here’s a few pictures which don’t really do the store justice. Well worth a visit on a autumn day with not many people about.

Also of note is the menswear in the basement (unfortunately no pictures) with some very well sourced pieces of display kit, the Murdock barber shop and the oyster bar which looks like it’s been discovered from behind a bricked up wall, definitely worth a visit when the evenings get darker, the Christmas season starts to ramp up and you need somewhere cosy to rest for a while.

You can see the full group of photos on our flickr page or if you subscribe to the flickr retail group.

Liberty exterior
Liberty window
Liberty exterior
Liberty exterior
Liberty exterior
Liberty exterior

Currys pops up

I’ve enjoyed reading (and listening) to Simon Perry on Digital Lifestyles reporting from Whitehaven on the digital switchover over the past few days. Interesting to see Currys make good, if a little uninspiring, use of a pop up retail format. You can read the full story with pictures here. It’s an interesting move, although I think Currys have missed a trick in not featuring the truck or ‘Currys on tour’ at least on the digital switchover part of their website.

Tips for building great websites

In the run up to Christmas, especially with postal delays looming, a timely list from Retail Bulletin Top ten mistakes that could leave your website vulnerable as the Christmas rush approaches.

Seth (isn’t it great when your first name can be your brand) has been majoring on websites and CSS lately, here’s his list of do’s and dont’s for creating a website.

And finally e-consultancy’s 10 reasons why your website sucks.

[Sources: Retail Bulletin, Seth Godin, e-consultancy, Telegraph online]