How ‘green’ is my shopping mall?

by Alexandra Biesada, May 31st, 2007, 7:00 am

Blame it on Earth Day, Al Gore, or, more likely, rising energy costs and a desire to please customers. Whatever the reason/s, the retail industry appears to have contracted a serious case of greenitis — the sudden compelling desire to befriend the Earth and become a purveyor of all things eco-friendly.

Let’s begin with the world’s #1 retailer. Wal-Mart has pledged to reduce by a third the amount of energy it consumes by 2010 and is pushing its 60,000 suppliers to reduce the amount of packaging by 5% by 2013. Given its heft and outsized influence on the retail and consumer products industries, Wal-Mart is to be applauded.

The US’s #2 retailer, Home Depot, gave away 1 million compact fluorescent light bulbs in an Earth Day promotion, while Wal-Mart is urging shoppers to buy the energy efficient bulbs in its stores.

This is terrific news, but I suspect that many big-box retailers tout their environmental initiatives in part to deflect the criticism they encounter when they propose building sprawling superstores atop a field of poppies or the last breeding ground of some endangered species. After all, it’s the stores themselves that have the primary environmental impact on the land and communities in which they’re built.

So why build more stores? The last few years have demonstrated that consumers are embracing online retail for everything from books to groceries to apparel to prescription drugs. Who needs more bricks-and-mortar shops when just about every major retail chain has an online incarnation?

Certainly a system of central call centers and regional distribution facilities could take the place of individual stores in malls across America. And while the fuel and costs of shipping would be substantial, I doubt it would outweigh the environmental impact of the construction of shopping malls and their surrounding parking lots, the transportation and other supply chain costs to keep stores stocked, the electricity used to light malls and parking lots (often ALL NIGHT!), and the gas burned by shoppers on a round-trip to the local mall. A case study of the energy used by Amazon.com vs. book superstores conducted by the Center for Energy & Climate Solutions found that replacing buildings with Web sites saves energy and other natural resources and is a more efficient business model as well!

If a moratorium on new store construction sounds like a radical, half-baked idea, ask yourself: Does the world really need another GAP store when gap.com is there to serve you?