Retail Sustainability: The Uncomfortable Truth with Steve Lister

Well, welcome to season 10 of the award-winning Retail Tea Break podcast. My name is Melissa Moore, The Retail Advisor. I'm a retail educator, trainer and retail conference MC, and each week as your host, I'll be joined by industry experts, retailers, and brands to dispel the myths, share their knowledge and give you an insight into the retail industry. There's well over a hundred episodes now for you to listen back to on your favorite podcast platform.

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com today. Today I am joined by a pioneering sustainability consultant and longstanding advocate for the retail sector. He works alongside store design teams, marketing leaders, and supply chain partners to rethink how physical retail environments are created and delivered. For over 20 years now, he has helped retailers transform store fixtures, in store marketing and retail activations by improving design decisions, simplifying material choices and addressing end of life outcomes.

His work focuses on the point where impact and costs are largely determined, so early stage design, helping retail teams avoid waste, reducing operational complexity, and improving long-term value. This is gonna be an epic conversation. Steve Lister, welcome to the Retail Tea Break podcast. Thank you Melissa.

Great to be here, and thank you for inviting me on today. Can't wait. Looking forward to it. Really excited to have this conversation.

I say this is one area of retail, I'm not sure I know too much about, you know, underneath the surface. I'm delighted to have you on to dig a little bit deeper. So look, to kick us off, to kind of set the scene, in the time that it takes to boil a kettle, which I am told is about two minutes. Okay.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but tell us a little bit more about you and your background in this amazing industry. Okay. Well, great. Well, you framed it really, really well, so thank you for that nice intro.

Yeah, look, I've been sort of like talking about sustainability and passionate about sustainability within retail, I'll explain that in a little bit in more detail in a moment, for about 20 years. It started off in materials and then it sort of like then went, when I went into some agencies and some big brands, it started to really get a bit deeper. So over those 20 years I've worked, I've been super, super lucky to work with some amazing brands on sustainability. Projects like Nike, PVH Group, which is like, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Unilever, P&G, um, oh blimey.

I can keep going and going and going, Melissa, you know, Coca-Cola, Heineken. So and like you said, you know, let's make this really, really clear. Look, I am a sustainability consultant. I help those brands and retailers on their sustainability journey wherever they are on it.

Okay? But I understand that I'm also a sustainability realist. I'm not a tree hugger that will go in and blindly say to people, you've gotta do something for sustainability's needs. 'cause at the end of the day, what we're here for in retail is to sell products.

And that's what we do. We've gotta connect with consumers, we've gotta have an engaging process in the whole process, what it is, and then we've gotta sell a product. And that's really is at the core of what I do, is to help that whole journey piece be more sustainable. That's fantastic.

And I think that's why so many of us navigate towards you, your, your writings, whether it's on LinkedIn, whether it's on your own website, your trainings obviously, because you are a realist. You get the fact, as you said, we've gotta make money here. This is a business. But we can definitely do things in a much better way.

And I think it's incredible to have someone like you at the forefront of sustainability, you know, championing it for this industry. Yeah. A positive force. I mean, look, at the end of the day, Melissa, I understand that com companies are under a lot of stresses and pressures over the last few years coming out of COVID, move towards online, all those things that we, we've been through over the years and we're experiencing a lot of challenges now, is at the end of the day, they've gotta trade and they've gotta make money and they've gotta be profitable for shareholders and they've gotta give a good experience.

But one thing I always am is I always tell the truth and sometimes that truth is a bit difficult for people to hear, but one thing I'm not is, I'm not negative about retail. I love retail. Always have, always will do. And that's exactly what we need.

So look, I suppose to start us off, for those that, as you said, are on very different journeys, which again, it's really great of you to kind of be honest about that because we are not all able to spend millions on this, nor do we actually want to. And I definitely wanna get to that. But kick us off then. 2026, where's sustainability at in the retail sector?

Well, that's a really, really good question 'cause we've sort of like been on a bit of a high for the last three or four years. Sustainability within globally, but within, specifically within retail, tends to go in waves. And the reason why it goes in waves is those waves are driven by legislations. So unfortunately, because brands, retailer and consumers sometimes don't do what people want them to do, they have to force them to do it.

And unfortunately, legislation is the way to force people into put more positive action. So over the last few years we've seen some, and I'm not gonna bombard you with acronyms, you know, EUDR’s and PPWR’s and stuff like that you know, you can all look at those acronyms. I'm gonna make this really, really simple and, and keep it in a simple way. So we've been forced to make changes in our reporting, cutting our carbon emissions, that sometimes can be really, really confusing as well, right?

And then we're starting to look at things like waste and waste recycling the materials that we use. So there's legislations around those. Now we came through the back of 2025 where there was a bit of a sort of like a, a pause on some of the big stuff, the EU legislations when it comes to sustainability. And that's created a little bit of a pause, a little bit of an intake of breath where these big companies have gone, "oh, right, we've got a bit of a breath now for like 12, 18 months", and they've sort of come across the top of the wave and gone, right?

We can test concentrate on business for a little bit rather than worrying too much. Now, one thing I will say is, is if you are a global brand and retailer, you've got your direction of travel already. Are they taking their foot off the gas? No, they're not.

They're gonna continue along with their sustainability, you know, strategies. But some people will pull back. Now the next big wave that's gonna come through for retail is gonna come through at the back end of 2026, round about August time when what's called PPWR comes in. Mm-hmm.

Lots of people have heard of it. I was at a brand and retail meeting this week and actually some people in there didn't know a lot about it, and that's fine. It's not a big issue for for them. But it is gonna be a big issue for some people.

So for anyone who's listening, PPWR is all about packaging and plastic waste recycling, and it's all about how much recycled content you're gonna be using, the recyclability at scale. And it's also gonna be about that box size as well. So if you are a luxury retailer and you are selling a, I don't know, an eyeliner or a, a lip stick, and you've got it in a beautiful big box and it's a tiny little product in the middle. You've got some challenges coming 'cause you're gonna have to start thinking about box size.

Now you might look at that and go, "okay Steve, so what other knock on effects does that have?" Now, this week I was very lucky to be in a brand meeting, an exchange, sustainability, confidential exchange with seven retailers. I can't even name them 'cause we're under Chatham House rules for that. They're now saying, "well, if all my box sizes change, all of my displays are gonna change."

So think of all the layouts, think of all the sizes, think about all the existing retail that we've got that's built around current sizes. So, yeah, so it is exciting. It's challenging. We're gonna have a bit of a lull for the next few months, but it's gonna kick off at the back end of 2026.

Blimey! But actually that's what I love about you. You've made that, I have to say, you've made that sound really simple. I know it's not, and I know it's incredibly costly, but It is complex.

It starts to kind of prove to retailers out there, big or small, and again, I'm really mindful of even small brands out there, smaller independent retailers, this is impacting you all in a very different way and may probably ways they haven't even thought of, as you said with, you know, a lipstick sitting on a shelf, now your whole POS is changing. Now how you are recycling that has to change everything. It's, it's everything. So think of it, if you are a luxury beauty brand, okay, and you walk into a beautiful, engaging, amazing store environment, and then at the back end of this year, someone's gonna turn around and go, all of these boxes are gonna reduce by 30%, 40%, 50%.

You've got a lot of gaps. You've also got an awful lot of reeducating of the customers. 'cause I know if I'm used to something coming and I know, I know brands rebrand in that respect or whatever, and, and times change. But however, if I'm used to getting this beautiful, big package that's luxurious and really fancy and all of of a sudden Big equals expensive.

That's the thing, and then all of a sudden this tiny little thing comes through, I almost feel a little bit disheartened. So if I haven't been reeducated in advance, yeah, I'm now disappointed with the brand and I've no idea why. Well, if you're gonna buy yourself, I'm not gonna name brands because it's unfair for me to do it. But if you're gonna buy a beautiful eyeliner pencil that, that has a pencil sharpener, that's gonna cost you 20, 30 pound.

It used to come in a nice big box and you could open it and have a great experience. Now it's gonna come in a little tiny one, and you've paid 25 quid for that? You know, so yes, there, there are challenges, but they're gonna be good challenges and no doubt retail will adapt. We've always adapted within the retail sector.

Some will be faster, some will be sort of early adopters and they will go for it and they'll use it as a competitive advantage. Some will be laggards, they'll leave it to the last minute or leave it until afterwards, and they'll be the brands that probably will suffer. Wow. Lots to do people.

Lots to do. And do you know what the best way I say to do this? Just follow Steve's lead on this and actually on that, yeah you've been running this incredible, really, I suppose I wanna say educational series 'cause it has been for me. You've been running this brilliant series on LinkedIn, 'Sustainability Uncensored', I suppose it's talking about these uncomfortable truths and you see it as you say, you see it at the kind of the coalface there because you do talk to the biggest brands in the world.

You are in the rooms when they're making decisions. What are some of these uncomfortable truths that actually retailers need to be really honest about at the moment? Well, lemme just tell you the reason why I did it. Hey look, I've been on sort of like social media for, for years and you always get spikes in what people wanna see and what they don't wanna see.

I'm always really positive about what I see. I never will single a brand out and tell them they're really bad because I think that's unfair to call people out in that way 'cause there might be a reason for that. But it was sort of like pre-Christmas, Melissa, that I sort thought to myself, there is some big untruths in the marketplace that people don't wanna talk about. And people were saying to me, "well Steve, you are well positioned and if you do it in a, in a sort of a fairly positive way because some of these uncomfortable truths do hurt, you know?

And I'll unpack some of them in a moment. So I did it and I've, I've gotta be honest with you, I've been sort of like quite overwhelmed with some of the responses that I've had and some of the posts I've had have gone crazy, a hundred thousand plus views in sort of like 24, 48 hours. So obviously they're, they're getting more engagement. Have I been accused of, maybe some of it is a bit more clickbaity.

Yeah, do you know what, that's not a bad thing. If it gets views mm-hmm and it gets conversation flowing and it gets positive action change, then do you know what? I've done my job. So yeah, so it's been really, really good.

And yeah, I can tell you some of the things, topics I've, I've posted, which have been quite not controversial, but have, have had a lot of interest. Go for it. Tell us, tell us about a couple of them. 'cause I've loved it, again, from an educational perspective, but as you say, more importantly, it is getting people talking, which is exactly what we need to do.

Well, so basically I, you know, I've always been sort of like talking about, it all starts with design, okay? You know, 80% of the sustainability impact is determined at the early design stage. So that's 80% of that impact. So if you get it wrong at the beginning, you've got no chance, Melissa, you literally, it's going landfill.

You know it's going incineration, you've got no chance. So, I started to pull people up about their design choices and sort of saying, you know, hey look, you guys have been really lazy 'cause I've been into this store and look at this display. It's actually, you know, it's the same one you've been designing for 10 years. Why haven't you done anything about it?

Sort of thing. So that was uncomfortable 'cause then you all of a sudden you are challenging someone's design capabilities, but it wasn't personal. What you're saying to people is, is you've gotta move on, you've gotta develop you like everything, you have to take those steps forward. So I tackled design and that was really interesting.

And then I tackled materials that people were using and I was sort of like said to people, "hey, look, you're making uneducated decisions here. You're just making stuff through lazy decisions. You're using MDF and bonding things together and screwing things together." They've got no chance of being sort of like disassembled and recycled at the end.

And they were like, well, it's because of our manufacturing partners. And I'm like, well, hold a second. You are the brand. You know, you've gotta understand.

You're paying the bills. Yeah. You got it. You're paying for this as well.

And also as well as you're paying for it at the end. And I'll touch on that in a moment. But then a really uncomfortable one. Now, this was probably the industry's biggest dirty secret that Steve Lister had to pull back the curtain and, and sort of like show people what they were doing, and that is compliance levels.

So anyone who's listening, if you don't understand what that means, sorry if all of you do. If you don't, I'm educating even if it's just one person, I've done a good job. So basically I produce a thousand pieces of display today, and I send them to 500 of my retailers and tell them to put two of them out. Now, I was in a retail meeting this week with a brand, and they told me, and I can't tell you who it is, I'm sorry, I would love to, I would love to shame 1: the retailer, and I'd love to sort of like big up the brand, but I can't do it.

They said, and this is factual, they said 40% of what they send into store never makes it either into the right place or onto the shop floor. So let's just take 40%, okay? That's a freaking big number, right? Okay, what have you spent 50 grand?

What if you spent half a million. That's a lot of money that's gonna go straight in the skip. Do you know what? As someone that's runs stores, and again, I'm gonna be really, really careful now not to point out which ones.

I've done it myself, Steve. Now look, we might be talking 20 years ago, but I know that 100% is true and I'm sure there are lots of store managers listening, they go, "yeah, absolutely!" Half that stuff that comes into us, we've no idea where it's going. We haven't got room for it 'cause it's been sent in and it's binned.

There you go. Now obviously, now let me just frame it 'cause I like to do this as well. Yeah. So I'm not just gonna chuck a stone in here and just sort of like stay.

Now store managers are busy, you know? Yeah. He or she are running a very, very busy shop, a retail environment, you know, do they get too much stuff in? Could do.

That's not for me to say, you know? Some people have told me that they don't like it 'cause it clutters up their store. Well, there's part of me that turns around and thinks, well, if you're selling something, it makes you more money, it makes you more profitable. But we'll get off that one.

So yeah, so that was the shocking bit. So the uncomfortable truth on that one was compliance levels are shocking. They're shocking. So just put your head into that.

You've, you've done all of the design. You've done all of the materials. You've shipped all the materials from around the world. You've manufactured it.

You've printed it. You've shipped it. You've sent it to store, and it goes straight to the bin, you know? Oh my God.

If the CEO of any of those companies knew that 40% of their money was going straight into a bin, right? I think they would be mortified if they knew that. And I am, now the way you talk about that, but even the process, as you say, even if that brand's done everything right, they've designed it in the right way. They've used the right sort of materials, they've shipped it, so they've covered all of that, and they're kind of ticking the boxes there, they've been really careful, for it to land into a store that hasn't been planned properly and for that to have gone wrong at that stage, I'm horrified, like Steve, I'm genuinely horrified for my former self years ago.

Yeah. And I've no doubt there's an awful lot of people out there that actually, as you said, they're so busy they don't have time to think about the fact, look at what I've just done. Yeah. You could have missed, don't get me wrong, you could have missed the campaign date, if there's a campaign date.

I get all of that and I get the complexities. Now I'm only laughing because I think it's really shocking, right? And I don't, I don't think it's funny at all, right? No.

But you've gotta look at it and think it hasn't changed. Yeah. I mean, I was speaking to the POPAI UK and Ireland, the trade association, this week once I found out the information and they said they did a compliance, project 20 years ago and nothing's changed. Yeah.

You know, you still get marketing teams that will go in and installation teams that will do it. Some people can afford to do that. Some of them can't afford to do it. But I still think, I still think that that's crazy.

In 2026 when we're, when retail is difficult and we need to make the sales and all of that, that still, even if we dialed it down and said 25%, that's still a quarter of everything that doesn't reach the shop floor. I'm horrified and I'm gonna put my hands up here on the podcast and say I'm horrified. I was one of them back then and I don't think it has changed. But look, I think that's definitely a conversation.

Yeah. Having had you, and again, you've explained it so clearly there, I, I genuinely don't think people realize what they're doing. And that's, there's the conversation starter really. There you go.

And then the last one on the Uncomfortable Truth, that really another one which I had to pull the curtain back on was waste, you know? Yeah. Honestly, I've been to two of the biggest beauty retailers in the UK and I've, you know, made with thousands of stores and I've been to their recycling centers, and you, you are talking some of these warehouses and, and facilities have 60, 70 articulated lorries a day of waste coming back from stores, 365 days a year, and you'll gain everything back, Melissa, you are getting secondary packaging, tertiary packaging, you're getting waste products, you're getting print, you're getting POS, you're getting broken product, you're getting everything.

I've stood and watched articulated lorries being opened from a return of a somewhere from Nottingham or Glasgow or, or Belfast. And they've opened the back up and literally 30, 40 wire cages of plastic wrap in boxes. And it is unbelievable the amount of waste that comes out the back of a store. Now, it's not all negative.

It's not all negative because if it's a recyclable product like plastic or cardboard, those retailers get a rebate for it and they make money from it. But if it's complicated, it's been designed wrong, they have to put it in the general waste bin, which means they have to pay for it to go away. So those design challenges that that people get wrong at the beginning don't get realized until they come out at the end. Then all of a sudden someone's gotta pay 200 pound a tonne to get rid of it.

So what you'll think there is, Melissa, is that's the operations team inside that retailer who then have to pay for that. Now, does the operation team work with the design team at the beginning to minimize waste? No way do they. Everyone's in their silo.

Look at this great display. It looks great. It's got all these wings on and it's got all this metallic stuff on. It's all got these LEDs and isn't it wonderful 'cause we're gonna sell more?

And at the end of it, the bloke's having to be in the rubbish section, you know, sorting it out going, "that's gotta go into landfill, that's gonna cost me 200 pound a tonne". So there's a real dilemma. There's a huge dilemma here of cost, functionality and sustainability. And those three things all pull and push against each other when it comes to delivering, engaging, impactful retail stores.

Crikey. That's shocking. That genuinely, it is. Look, it's a good thing, as you say, a lot of that can be recycled, but we need to start thinking about these nuances now.

And I'm almost immediately drawn to kind of Christmas displays, of course, with the sparkles and the glitter and all the nonsense and yeah. And I can just see your face there going, yeah. And that stuff just literally gets binned. I just walk through the store and go, landfill, landfill, landfill, landfill, landfill.

But look, at the end of the day, you know, it's, a lot of it is about education, Melissa, and there are now some great print processes that can put, you know, glitters and different sort of like effects down. So you can recreate that. One great example, and I am gonna name them, was Ferrero Rocher. So, Ferrero, years gone by, were the one of the biggest users of sort of like gold foils and gold metallics as we've all seen them.

They changed, worked with an ink producer and worked with a UK print manufacturer and a European print manufacturer and actually printed gold ink down, or a gold simulated ink down. They went from being the most unrecyclable unsustainable product displays, and they're, they do hundreds of thousands of these, by the way, you know? To really being one that can just be easily recycled and it was all down to an ink change. So, and very subtle.

They didn't make a big thing about it. But I bet you any money if I went into there and asked 'em the key question, I bet you any money, they save loads of money. I bet it was an operational change. It wasn't a sustainable one.

I bet you. Oh, that's interesting. It's actually the money driving the sustainability then. Yeah, I bet you any money, they were paying a fortune for gold laminated frigging board, but they weren't paying a lot of money for the gold simulated ink to go onto a standard material.

So you look at these things and you think to yourself, Melissa, wow, you know, so they went on this massive sort of like journey. You are great. You are now wonderful. But I bet you that was driven by operational excellence and costs by procurement.

It wasn't driven by the sustainability team. But you know what, in that respect, everyone wins and I love that. That's brilliant. It's a total win-win.

And you have to look out of that. I'm thinking maybe Christmas time again, I'm gonna look out for those stands 'cause that's fascinating. But actually on this, and again, you know, operational rather than purely sustainable, saving the planet type stuff. I'm gonna ask you something here, and I know it's gonna get me into trouble, but do you know what we're talking about Uncomfortable Truths, so let's roll with it.

You and I both know this industry is kind of fraught at the moment with, you know, recruitment retention issues. AI is everywhere, like it's almost banging a drum for itself at the moment. Risk security issues, I could just name them all the, the industry as always is agile, but it's really been thrown some rubbish over the last few years, so there's plenty of things pulling on operational teams and also the budget and finance from retail. Well, where does sustainability fall into this?

Like is it genuinely top priority for retailers at the moment? No. I can tell you that right now. And, and that's why I'm a realist.

Hey look, some people don't care at all, Melissa. They don't. And you know what? It's not my job to change people's view on that.

I would say, you said about is it top? Definitely not, definitely not. You've got survive. You've got pay your staff, you've got, you know, you've got logistics issues, you've got all those things.

You've got heating cost and energy costs spiking. So I get all of that. One thing I will say though, is for the vast majority of our brands and retailers, sustainability is just embedded now within their businesses. Mm-hmm.

You know, it's, it's not, it's not, you know, and this is good for me to say, it's nothing special. It's good operational. You've started at the beginning, you've looked at your staff and DE&I and all of the things about having a really lovely balanced business, you know, making sure it's not skewed heavily towards one gender or another gender, and then it flows through into how your impacts are and stuff like that. It flows through into operational and operational excellence.

So for me, I would say it's not a priority, but it's there when it comes to reporting and being a company that actually commits to sustainability, there are some amazing examples. People who are leading the way, and I'm gonna drop in some of the clients that I've worked with. L'Oreal is a huge example. The team in L'Oreal and L'Oreal's Lux division are breaking boundaries when it comes to sustainability within luxury retail, you know, for beauty retail.

But then you've got the, the people like the Waitroses and people like that. Got great stores, M&S. M&S right, under Stuart Machin, he's doing some stuff that is really subtle. They've reinvigorated the brand, but you go in and look at all their in-store marketing, very subtle.

They're now embedding sustainability within really good retail environments. Yes, you've got digital screens. Yes, you've got other areas where you would immediately look at and go, that's not sustainable. But when you've got a lens on it, like I have, you can see some amazing things they're doing about, you know, the clips and the strips and how things are put up and taken down for ease and things like that.

They're a great example of understated sustainability. And do you know what, that's what it's all about, isn't it? You don't need to make a song on the dance. If it makes you money or saves you money, fantastic.

But actually, if you can do your bit as you are moving forward, which is exactly what M&S have done, like again, everyone wins here and everyone you know, really, you know, is satisfied by doing it. I'll get back to AI in a minute 'cause I want, I've got an opinion on that. Okay. But one thing I will say is again, this week I was with some brands and retailers in what was called a sustainability exchange.

And we run it on sort of like the Chatham House rules. For anyone who doesn't know Chatham House, and that is, the rules are basically, you're not allowed to say, name any brand. You can't say anything, but you can say the headlines, but you're not allowed to name someone or quote someone. But one of the global brands said that they had spent years worrying about the consumer.

About how to educate and inspire the consumer about sustainability journey. They've been doing it for about five years and basically it's failed. And the reason for that is, it's, and this is my opinion, it's not theirs, is we can't assume that this consumer's gonna save the planet. It's actually not our job.

It's not our job. It's governments and it's brands and it's retailers to do it. And this brand turned around and said they changed their strategy through education of the retailers, not the consumers. And it's been a big game changer for them.

So their conversations around the materials, what they use, you know, some messaging, 'cause I've gotta be honest with you, Melissa, sustainability messaging just gets completely missed in store. Consumers don't see it. You might have the thing about organic, you might have the, some things about healthy chickens and stuff like that, and eggs and things like that. But on the whole, there's a massive value action gap with consumers.

I'm gonna be more sustainable, but I'm gonna go and buy some leather shoes and loads of Primark clothes and loads of throwaway retail. And then they come out the other end and go, no, I haven't done that at all. And it's like... And you know what?

It's something I was gonna ask you. I'm like, again, like do customers kind of notice? Do they care? And I don't think, and again, just purely from my little part of retail, I don't think they do or they don't almost feel they have time or money at the moment to care.

There you go. What you've just said there is actually perfect. And that is they do care 'cause they don't wanna be unsustainable. Mm.

But hey, look, if you're a single dad or a single mom and you've got a tight budget and your, your bills in the last two weeks have just doubled in your gas and your oil, right? You're gonna walk into store whether you are buying some new clothes for your kids to go to school in, or you're gonna buy a new beauty product or you're gonna buy some groceries. Is sustainability important? Not at the moment, but you still don't wanna buy an unsustainable product.

I still think people intrinsically will come home and go look at the waste of this or the packaging's awful. So I think people still have that view, but when things get tight, sustainability drops down the list of priorities, you know? Do we walk into a supermarket and think we're gonna fill our basket or fill our trolley with the most sustainable products in the world? You're like no.

1: 'cause a lot of them cost more money. Yeah. Admittedly, they're smaller volumes. And there's additional costs.

But I still think consumers have high points where they think, oh, this is awful. Packaging is a big one. Packaging is a massive issue for consumers. 'cause they will look at it and go, what a waste.

And I'm filling my bin up, look at my bin every week. It's doubled and trebled in the waste that I have. So there are spikes, Melissa. But I don't think we can assume that consumers will save the world 'cause they're not, it's not their job.

I've had big arguments about this with other sustainability consultants. Yes, it is. You've gotta change consumer behavior. Hey, look at plastic bags, right?

We change consumer behavior by that we don't, we you can't go into a supermarket now and put out loads of bags, right? So you can change it. Consumer's behavior. I get that.

Slow, slow and steady. And it's that educational piece, isn't it? Drip feeding. That was also driven by retailers though, Melissa.

Fascinating. It is when you start to think about these things. But come here, I wanna go back to the AI 'cause you, you were interested in that one, and I'm always fascinated to hear people's takes. And again, you've such a different lens looking on retail and AI.

Go for it. Tell us. Well, it's just, I see it and it's on every single freaking web casters, every single podcast, every single webinar. You know, retail AI, AI, AI, AI.

Hey look, all I'm saying here is is, and I've seen some great AI stuff to do with sustainability, purchasing, procurement, you know, streamlining operations. I get it, I get it. But what does AI mean to a consumer? Absolutely nothing.

Right? It, it doesn't. If I'm gonna walk into the High Street today, am I worried about AI? What's AI gonna do for me today when I walk down my high street?

Nothing. It is gonna be amazing transformation when it comes to back office and operations. I get that bit. You know, it might be great that you get a Louis Vuitton mirror in Central London or Milan or Rome that can put all my clothes on me and can back office order and all of that.

I get that. But if you're walking down the road in Liverpool or Manchester or Belfast or whatever. Are you, is AI gonna touch your life as a consumer today, tomorrow, or next week, or next year? Probably not.

It will do in the back office. It will do in the operations. It will do in there. Can, can you, Can you remember when we, we thought that things like 3D printing was gonna take over the world and we are gonna do 3D printing and everyone was gonna have a 3D printer in the world, you know?

Am I gonna predict that AI is gonna be the same? Of course not. AI is transforming our lives. Things like ChatGPT and all of those things is incredible.

Retail? Hmm, juries out for me. I'm always open to seeing the next big thing. I love innovation within retail, you know, and, and that, but I think the average person won't really see it for a long, long time.

So true. And I completely agree. And it's the same with mobile. You might look at mobile and say, we can now talk into this, and we can do that, and it can do our shopping lists, and I can talk to my fridge.

People don't want do that. So you know, people said, oh, I can take my phone and I can see into my fridge, right? And I, why, why? You know, so, yeah.

Oh dear. Well, actually, this leads me really nicely into the next question, and it's one I've been asking everyone on, on season 10 of the Retail Tea Break podcast. What are you most excited or most curious about when it comes to the future of retail? Oh, good question, 'cause we've just had EuroShop.

Yeah. So, EuroShop was fantastic. Again, it, it probably everyone who knows it, is every three years. And this year was fascinating for me because I wanted to see what was gonna happen from the last three years.

Three years ago, which was very overtly green. And I don't usually use the word green, but I mean that in color, not in sustainability. 'cause green is a word, to do with the, the greenwashing initiative and the green claims directive that's actually green and eco is on the naughty list. You're not gonna be able to use that moving forward.

So anyone who's got the words in their marketing, get 'em out quick. Oh! Oh there's, Melissa, there's a whole list of words that really you've gotta be moving away from with the green claims directive. That's really good to know that again, it's interesting for one, for retailers and brands to be watching out for if they weren't aware of.

I didn't know that. Okay well if I said to you, come to my ecostore, what does that mean? That's a really good point. So I take it that's on the naughty list, is it?

Does it mean, does it mean economy or does it mean eco? I've got a sustainable product, well what does that mean? And I love the fact you've said that because that baffles me all the time. Yeah.

Okay, so I've got a product that's recyclable. Is that 1% recyclable or a 100% recyclable? That compost, that's biodegradable. What?

In a thousand years? Well, okay. That's not very sustainable, is it? So the green claims directive is going to force us to use words that are more transparent and that you could substantiate those words.

So you can still use recyclable, but you could, you could have to put, is it 50%, is it 1% or 100%? You can still put it's biodegradable. But you've gotta put on there a thousand years or, or one month. So it is just taking it to the next level.

So to answer your question, 'cause we segued into, into that, is EuroShop showed me that the next three years is gonna be about embedded sustainability. You know, me and you walked around, we saw loads of different agencies, loads of different concepts, and I saw that sustainability was then embedded into retail design more. So it wasn't at the front. It wasn't green trees, it wasn't plants, it wasn't brown paper and string and blah, blah, blah.

It was really lovely, beautifully elegantly designed screens, setting metal displays, which are steel, modular, a hundred percent recyclable at the end of their life. You know, lots of wood products that were panels that you could slip in and slip out and change. So I think what I'm excited about is how sustainability is gonna be embedded. And I'm excited about experience, I've always been excited about experiential retail.

I love going into stores. I love getting excited about seeing something new. And I, so for me, I'm excited about, I think, you know, people have talked for years about retail being dead and stuff like that. We all know that's a lot of old rubbish, right?

Retail's coming back. I think we want a lot more experiences. We want to feel our money's going further and we, and you know, there is still this human thing of being out with people in a group doing stuff. There always gonna be people who wanna buy stuff online.

I get that, right? But I still think as human beings, we like to be out doing things and retail is a very, very good part. So I think it's exciting. I think sustainability will just be embedded.

We won't see it as much, and I think that's a great thing. It's just gonna be operational excellence rather than in your face, look at this store, it's made of cardboard. Okay. Big deal.

And I'm really glad to hear you say that. I'm looking forward to that. I think EuroShop was really exciting in that respect that, you know, the next couple of years it's just gonna be back to beautiful retail stores. Elegant.

Doing what they should do. Not telling me that the stands are made a cardboard, I don't care, as a consumer, I don't. No, for the retailer, it means a lot. But that's nothing to do with the consumer.

So that, so for me, I think the operational excellence will be there. The retailers will have more conversations about those. But as a consumer, I still wanna go out and be wowed and delighted when I go to a store. I still wanna buy this jumper..

I still wanna take a look at it. I still wanna look at the material, right? Okay, if I wanna buy another one of these, in blue, I probably will just go and order it online. But I've got the brand, I've embedded into sort of like All Saints.

I like that brand. I've bought into it. I, I like their stores anyway, but I know, so the first time I buy something is normally something I'd look at and go in and I wanna be wowed. I wanna look at all those things and make sure I've made the right decision.

If I wanna buy another color, I'd sort it out online, probably. But you know, isn't that just, it's great retail. That's retail 101. Yeah.

It's the simple stuff done really well. Yeah. And I think it's exciting to feel that that's, even with sustainability, that's the way we should be going forward. Not labeling it as sustainable as you said, just having really good retail.

Yeah. And, and we've seen retail really, really change. I mean, a few years ago, I mean, who would've thought, you know, we had charity shops where we could take old clothes, but now we've got Vinted. Yeah.

So, so now we've got a whole new world of, of, actually I don't wanna wear this jumper anymore, but it's actually quite expensive. I paid X for it blimey, you know, actually I might wanna put it online and sell it for 20 quid, okay? Yeah. You know, so I think that whole thing, and again, Vinted is not positioned as a sustainable, reusable, it's a selling platform, but it's not really.

It's really keeping clothes in their life cycle and getting people to use them more and more. So actually they've never made anything about sustainability, but it's a... No, and that's, that's a really good point. And people utilizing it aren't necessarily doing it 'cause it's a sustainable thing to do, as you said.

They just wanna pass on really good clothes and maybe make a little back and that's great. Yeah. They also wanna buy it for next to nothing with all due respect. Anyway, moving on from Vinted.

As much as we love it, it's a, look, I think it's definitely the way forward. But, but that's a sustainable business right there, but it's, it's not in your face. It's definitely the way to go. So, look, last question, 'cause we could definitely talk all day and we do.

What's coming up next for you this year? Big thing for me, the most I'm talking about at the moment is a 'cause obviously if we move away from the consumer now and we get right back into the heart of retail, retail design, we're talking about materials. We, POPAI UK and Ireland, I'm very lucky. I chair the sustainability council every quarter.

And what we have there is a bunch of brands and retailers who come and talk to us a bit like the one I've had this week is they tell us everything about, you know, what, what their biggest challenges are. And we had one, beginning in of this year, in January. The number one biggest topic they had was materials, education and materials, what materials should they be using? And we're talking everything from your cardboard and your fiber products, right up to luxury products.

'cause obviously if you are L'Oreal, if you're Charlotte Tilbury, you know, if you're Stella McCartney, you know you've got beautiful store environments to build, you know, Aesop, those sorts of people, you know? So, my challenge, and it's part of my background, is sustainable materials, is now we're being asked more questions about materials. Where do they come from? How do I recycle them?

How do I get them back into circulation? You know, can we talk about modularity, Steve? You know, so for me it's gonna be a really exciting year talking about retail design, and materials being used and, already, I've gotta say it's been a fantastic start to the year and I think it's gonna springboard us into the whole back end of it. But yeah, so that piece for me is real exciting this year is, is people are now starting to make educated decisions based upon the materials that they use across the whole retail build, including that flows into packaging as well.

So that's everything, 'cause obviously PPWR we talked about, is gonna drive more educated decisions about how they make packaging and secondary packaging as well. So it is a real exciting year. I can't, I can't wait. Amazing.

I love this. And again, we'll, we'll have to get you back on as time goes on to kind of keep us updated in these things, 'cause the insights are absolutely brilliant. They really, really are. Look, if you've enjoyed today's episode, please do share it from any of the podcast platforms and of course, tag me, Melissa Moore and the Retail Tea Break podcast.

You can listen back to all, gosh, it's nearly 120 episodes now of the podcast on your favorite podcast platform, and while you're there, obviously hit that follow button so that you get to listen first every week. Steve, where can people find you if they wanna connect with you? You can follow me on LinkedIn or goes to steve@stevelister.com.

You can just email me or go to just stevelister.com, very imaginatively named. And then you can connect with me there. Follow me on LinkedIn.

I always put my stuff on there, wear my heart on my sleeve, always open to advice, direct message me if you need any advice. I'm very open about helping people, and getting a more positive view on sustainability. I will definitely put all those bits in the show notes so people can connect with you. Steve, it's been a pleasure and I really mean that.

I've learnt loads. I think you are so open and honest about what's going on in this industry from a sustainability aspect, but also your wider knowledge of the industry is incredible. Thank you for your time today. Thank you very much, Melissa.

Really appreciate it. A huge thank you again to SmartGifty for bringing us this episode of the Retail Tea Break podcast. SmartGifty is a modular experience and insights platform trusted by leading destinations and retail environments, from shopping centers and retail chains to independent businesses and tourism or food destinations. SmartGifty empowers every place that treats its customers as guests, not just transactions.

So for more information, visit www.smartgifty.com today.