Green retailing advocacy starts by limiting plastics

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippine Retailers Association (PRA-Cebu) is taking its strong stance in promoting “green retailing” among members, initially by minimizing the use of plastic shopping bags.

PRA-Cebu president Melanie C. Ng said although it’s a “bloody” fight to totally do away with plastic bags because of cost, security and consumers’ acceptance factor, PRA will soon come up with solutions that will push for a strong “green retailing” advocacy.

Ng said PRA prime movers and hard core supporters of the retail industry in Cebu will have a focus-group-discussion (FGD) on this matter in the next two weeks to come up with win-win solution on how to push “green retailing” in Cebu.

Eradicating the use of plastic bags, may be the first factor that will be implemented by individual retailer, but Ng said this is going to be a “revolutionary” change by both retail companies, and the consumers.

“We will try to see what is doable. We can’t also expect all retail owners to immediately change [their system] and tell them to use biodegradable shopping bags, or brown bags. I can’t speak for them, its just like telling them how to do their businesses,” Ng said.

But, as an organization, Ng said PRA-Cebu will be pushing hard to advocate green retailing system among members, changing to biodegradable shopping bags, just like what other retail operators are doing, may involve an additional cost of money, but there has to be a solution in eliminating additional investment for this move.

Bulk-buying for environment-friendly shopping bags, as an organization is one of the options, Ng said as she has already lists of suppliers making biodegradable bags, although price of this material is still a big issue.

Requiring consumers to bring their own shopping bags, just like other countries are doing, is also seen as another “revolutionary” change for the shopping culture in the Philippines. “We don’t know how consumers will respond to this.”

There are over a hundred PRA-Cebu members. Ng said few of them including her company Premium Concepts, and NGenius are also implementing “green retailing” initiatives, but adopting this advocacy will ultimately depend on the retail company owner.

“Our members are mostly SMEs [Small and Medium Entrepreneurs], cost factor in this advocacy is a primary issue,” Ng said. However, she added that PRA-Cebu could also come up with suggestions on how to save in other areas like power consumption, in order to offset the cost of changing to biodegradable shopping bags.

“Times are difficult now. Competition is tough. We have to really find ways how to promote green retailing,” she said in such a way that retail companies will not be able to spend more on implementing “green retailing.”

Retail giants for instance like SM has already introduced biodegradable shopping bags, as well as other environment friendly chains like Healthy Options. Ayala Malls also recently introduced the availability of environment-friendly shopping bags.

In the next few months, Ng said PRA-Cebu will be able to come up with solutions on how to strongly push “green retailing” advocacy to its members, as well as educate the Cebuano consumers.