
Franchising Green Economy: Major Brands Choose Sustainability
Resilient, innovative, driving employment. Green businesses in Italy represent a real treasure to be incentivized. Sustainability, combined with digitalization, is a mix that no company or business model can afford to ignore, starting from franchising.
Digitalization becomes a catalyst for sustainable economy
In the next five years, the labour market will require 1.6 million workers capable of developing eco-sustainable solutions and strategies and 1.5 million workers able to navigate the Internet in a more or less professional manner.
This emerges from the analysis of medium-term forecasts (2020-2024) by the Excelsior Information System of Unioncamere. Approximately 2.7 million people will enter the workforce in the next 5 years, and 62% of them will need to have green skills. The demand will involve all professions: 46% of workers with “green” skills will be highly qualified profiles. Civil engineers, energy and mechanical engineers, technicians in construction site management, and occupational safety technicians will also be called to face the sustainability challenge.
Effects on the franchising world
These are figures and evidence that cannot leave a dynamic and flexible reality like franchising indifferent. One of the many business models called to face the greatest ongoing revolution: that of sustainability.
Among brands that are born with a strong green imprint and brands – even historic ones – that must deal with the need to change course and look at the environment as an indispensable element for their activities, today franchisors can and must work to become “sustainable” and reduce their impact on the planet as much as possible.
Sustainability from duty to opportunity
In the franchising world, awareness is growing about the need to invest in a green transformation. There are some realities that are born with sustainability in mind, offering solutions ranging from packaging-free products (as in the case of “Negozio Leggero – La spesa alla spina,” which also boasts a store abroad, in France) to energy saving (like SAV – Savenergy, mainly specialized in renewable energies and eco-friendly products, partnering with renowned companies such as General Electric, Multiutility Spa, Daikin), thus following a green approach throughout the business chain.
Others, instead, are facing the challenge of conversion, ready to review their policies to be more sustainable. Green investments have long been seen as a duty, an additional cost to be postponed for as long as possible. Today, however, most franchisors know that talking about sustainability is equivalent to discussing competitiveness. This aspect takes on further value in the current context, where the risk of strong environmental imbalances is likely to affect all basic sectors in the next 10-20 years. Furthermore, 37% of the 750 billion euros of the new EU budget will be dedicated to sustainability, a fundamental element for companies called to face realities – such as automotive or logistics – where the economic aspect, linked to financing, will deeply affect the acceleration of already ongoing trends.
Major franchising brands and their Eco-Friendly choices
H&M, from fast fashion protagonist to sustainability focus
Major fashion brands are often closely observed when it comes to sustainability. The textile industry and, more generally, the fashion world are among the main polluters of the planet. From fabrics to manufacturing processes, to consumption: the footprint left by the sector is indeed strong.
This is even more so when discussing brands like H&M, capable of offering fashion solutions at affordable prices, encouraging the fast fashion market. The major fashion brand quickly established a dedicated sustainability department, which finances and develops in-house projects for sustainable fashion, also signing important agreements with startups like Orange Fiber, which produces fabric from orange fiber. Moreover, it launched the Conscious Exclusive A/W20 collection, made with innovative materials produced from agricultural waste, used carpets, post-industrial plastic packaging, and atmospheric carbon, and dedicated a section of its website to suggestions and tips for creatively reusing old products.
MD, the sustainable GDO
Even the face of large-scale organized distribution is changing. At the end of November, three new MD-branded stores opened in Partinico (Pa), Dossobuono (Vr), and Settimo San Pietro (Ca), thanks to franchising agreements with three local entrepreneurs. Today, franchised MD-branded stores number 230, located throughout the national territory.
Sustainable development has always been one of MD’s main objectives, through precise actions that have been reported – at the beginning of the year – in the dedicated sustainability report. Since 2017, the company has set itself the goal of progressively neutralizing the CO2 emissions of its entire truck fleet through the adoption of green areas capable of absorbing them. At the beginning of 2020, 23,850 poplars were planted on an area of 100.5 hectares in the provinces of Mantua, Rovigo, and Cremona, capable of “disposing” of as many as 1800 tons of the gas responsible for global warming in one year.