The shopping centre industry has moved well beyond the old image of erecting big boxes that ruin the view for residents around the globe. Today, the industry is reassessing its role in society. Not only does it provide a place for people to meet, recreate, be entertained and learn, above and beyond a location to purely shop, but it also fulfills a sustainability mandate.
With this first Green Tactics feature, we bring you a few examples of shopping centres and retailers that are taking that mandate seriously and using it as a guide in developing, managing and marketing their properties.

Making Tracks

Mountain Equipment Co-Op (MEC), Canada’s largest supplier of outdoor equipment to pursuers of self-propelled wilderness-oriented activities, is walking its talk when it comes to sustainability.
The cooperative, which serves more than two million members in 192 countries, has released its first accountability report.
Dubbed Marking Our Route, the report puts the organisation under the microscope and tells its members how it has lived up to its sustainability and corporate responsibility mandate in all aspects of its operations, including product design, green buildings and catalogue production, sustainable transportation, product sourcing, factory conditions, community involvement, employee wellbeing and member satisfaction.
"This report highlights what we've done and what we're doing to mitigate the social, environmental and economic impacts of our business," MEC’s management explained.
"Simply put, it is a transparent account of how we are living up to our promise to be both a leader in social and environmental responsibility, and a leader in the co-operative movement. It is also an opportunity for us to show leadership by example and to challenge ourselves, our members and the business community to search for ways to ensure a sustainable future for everybody."
MEC has produced a postcard (printed on Domtar Earthchoice paper made of 100 percent post-consumer waste) to promote the report and placed copies of it near the cash registers at each of its stores.
On the back of the card, MEC invites members to log on to MEC.ca/accountability to access and download the report. Once online, members can also assess their use of our natural planet by taking the Ecological Footprint quiz.
After members input their answers to 16 questions, which are divided into the Food, Goods and Shelter categories, the Redefining Progress—Ecological Footprint application calculates the users’ footprint. The quiz can also be accessed directly at www.MyFootprint.org.

St David’s Gets Green Award

St David’s Shopping Centre in Cardiff, UK, has picked up an International Green Apple Environment Award for its carbon reduction project, which aims to reduce the total carbon production of the centre by 25 percent in five years.
To date, the centre has halved its gas usage using the scheme. It’s also saving over 80,000 Kwh in electricity annually and over 30 percent of its waste is now being recycled, thanks to a new waste management system and specialist wood and pallet recyclers—the centre collected a Tidy Business Standard’s Gold Award earlier in the year for its commitment to recycling.
As part of its Carbon Footprint project, St David’s says it has introduced improvements to lighting and heating, including the use of low energy bulbs, timer switches and light sensors in the centre to reduce electricity usage. Improvements to the air-handling system at the centre also saw its gas bill reduced by over 50 percent.
"St David’s has made a long-term commitment to being green and so we’re delighted to get a Green Apple Award. It’s a real feather in our cap," said Steven Madeley, general manager.
"As the city’s main shopping centre, it is our responsibility to ensure that the way we operate is as environmentally friendly as possible. We have more than 450,000 shoppers coming through our doors every week and this can have a big impact on the environment unless you make a commitment to be green."
And Madeley isn’t worried about reaching large goals. He goes step by step.
"Sometimes even the smallest change can make a big difference to carbon usage so we take it very seriously. This award is a testament to all our members of staff, especially our waste management team, and our tenants, who have been fully on-board with the project from day one."
Madeley also said that this was a very important year for the centre, which is scheduled to start its £30 million (€44.7 million) modernisation project in November.
The centre will get a brand new look and first up in the list of to-dos will be to link the existing property with the new £535 million (€797.15 million) St David’s 2 retail development.
The combined destination will be among the largest in the UK. with over 1.4 million square feet and more than 180 shops.
"We are committed to making those changes in the greenest possible way," Madeley noted, "so that by 2007, we can see even more improvements in our carbon usage."
The Green Apple Environment Awards are presented each year by The Green Organisation, an independent group dedicated to promoting environmental work across the globe.

Bin It to Win It!

Kingdom Shopping Centre in Glenrothes, Scotland, recently gave its customers a chance to instantly win a £10 (nearly €15) voucher when they participated in the Bin It to Win It competition.
The goal was to encourage shoppers to use the centre’s new recycling bins to recycle their paper, plastic or tins.
Each week, five winners were selected randomly from people seen using the bins and their details were also taken for a further chance to win an extra prize at the end of the competition.
Kingdom Shopping Centre placed 10 sets of the new recycling bins throughout its malls, replacing some of the old waste bins in an attempt to encourage more customers to recycle and to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill as part of the centre’s active environmental policy.
Kingdom Shopping Centre hopes that its competition, with the support of Enviro Kleen, Fife Council’s Take a Pride in Glenrothes campaign as well as several centre retailers such as Woolworths and Gamestation, will help kick-start people into using the new bins to recycle what they can during their visit.

Cool Cash

Scott Goodacre recently drove off with £250 (€372.50) worth of gift vouchers just for joining MetroCentre’s car sharing scheme. The 18-year old, who works as a sales assistant at the UK centre’s O2 store, won the prize after joining the scheme and bringing some friends with him to MetroCentre for work, including his girlfriend Bethany Stafford, an employee of the Next store.
"It just seems like the logical thing to do to share the journey to work as we all work at the Centre," Goodacre said. "Sometimes there are more than the two of us sharing the journey. I think I’ll buy an MP3 player with my vouchers."
MetroCentre launched its scheme to encourage the 7,000 members of its staff to car share on their trips to the centre, highlighting the environmental benefits of car sharing and raising awareness of the savings commuters can enjoy by sharing their fuel costs. Staff can register for the scheme at the centre’s customer services desk.
"We are very hopeful that many of MetroCentre’s staff will take advantage of this new scheme," said Steve Beverley, MetroCentre’s sustainable travel manager.
"The benefits to staff and shoppers include substantial transport savings, benefits to the environment, plus many more spaces being available to shoppers at the centre."
MetroCentre estimates that, on average, a car sharer will save approximately £1,100 (€1,639) a year by sharing the daily commute.

Water Shuttle

The Centre Commercial Rives d’Arcins in Bègles, France, operates a water shuttle every weekend aboard the Aliénor II. Every Saturday, the free service shuttles shoppers between the Louis XVIII Quay in downtown Bordeaux and the centre. The shuttle leaves Bordeaux at 2pm and 4pm, and the departure times from the centre are 5pm and 6:30pm.
The shuttle is among a host of environmentally-conscious programmes that the Centre Commercial Rives d’Arcins offers, including a recycling station and environment discovery workshops for children on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The centre actually uses its Website to present and promote its Environmental Charter as well as its commitment to respecting six main environmental principles:
1. Protect our site
2. Preserve our quality of life
3. Share our knowledge
4. Perpetuate our traditions
5. Take advantage of our life environment
6. Create a privilege location
The centre vows to use these principles to help its daily habits evolve in order to minimise the nuisance that its activities could generate. It sees that commitment as the best way to demonstrate what it calls its eco-citizenship.

Park & Boat

Gunwharf Quays is tackling the problem of city centre congestion in Portsmouth, UK, and doing its bit for the environment too. This past summer, the mixed-use development at Portsmouth Harbour enhanced its Park & Ride scheme to set up a Park & Boat service on a trial basis.
The service operated between the city’s Continental Ferry Port and Gunwharf Quays at 50-minute intervals and the centre says customers were provided with a designated parking area at the ferry port, which is located just off the M27 motorway, thereby avoiding the busy city centre and lengthy one-way systems.
Besides making shoppers’ commute more relaxing, Park & Boat also enhanced their overall experience. One of the service’s features was that during the 20-minute crossing, passengers enjoyed commentary pointing out ships in the port and places of interest, such as the city’s Royal Navel Dockyard and Historic Dockyards—information that travellers would have likely appreciated.
The Park & Boat trials took place from 19th August to 10th September, a time period during which the scheme was responsible for saving 300 Kg of emissions from the Portsmouth city centre.
"Following the outstanding success of this trial, we are now looking to make Park & Boat a regular service during our future summers," said Peter Emery, operations manager at Gunwharf Quays.
The centre’s other ‘green’ transport solutions include providing rail and bus links.

Green Genie

This past summer, Fareham Shopping Centre (Fareham) launched Green Genie, a new year-long eco-friendly campaign to encourage shoppers and tenants to take greater care of the environment.
Fareham got its customers involved by running a colouring competition. Participants could download and print a picture of the Green Genie mascot from Fareham’s Website, colour it in and then post it to the centre’s letter box by the information desk. The best entry would win a special trophy.
In the end, Freya Hutchings from Gosport was the lucky winner of the colouring competition. The eight-year old was chosen for her very detailed and brightly coloured version of the Green Genie. The centre says her entry also imaginatively explained how she would communicate the recycling message to the general public, by stating, "I would suggest what items can be made out of people’s waste."
"When we called Freya’s mum to inform her and congratulate her daughter, she was understandably very proud. She said that she was very keen to encourage more people to recycle and wanted the Green Genie to inform people what could be made from recycled materials," said Pam Gillard, centre manager.
"It was a fun competition with a serious message and we are extremely pleased with its popularity. We will be running a series of Green Genie campaigns throughout the year."
The Green Genie campaigns, which the Fareham Borough Council supports, will encompass several initiatives, including competitions, newsletters and more trophies.

Recycling Drive

Coopers Square began this autumn in full force, kicking off Introduction to Recycling, a drive to push shoppers in the UK’s Burton upon Trent and East Staffordshire regions to go green.
Working in partnership with East Staffordshire Borough Council and Conkers, the National Forest Visitor Centre at Swadlincote, Coopers Square began its drive on 25th September with recycling activities, a display of Citroën’s environmentally-friendly C1 Airplay car and a special visit from the original ambassadors of recycling, The Wombles.
The centre’s event featured a large Perspex container in the Main Square, where shoppers could dispose of their used plastic bottles, steel and aluminum cans. These items will continue to be collected over the coming months and sent to local recycling centres, with profits funding the planting of trees in a dedicated area at Conkers. Visitors to Coopers Square will be able to track the progress rate of donated trees by the meter marked on the side of the Perspex box.
"Coopers Square has a corporate responsibility to fulfill to the environment and we are extending that responsibility into the local community," said Dave Chadfield, centre manager.
"Recycling needs to be a way of life, not just for a week, and with this in mind Coopers Square wants to keep collecting [shoppers’] recycled cans and plastic bottles. It’s vital to our survival that we all recycle. I hope everyone will grasp the concept with both hands and do their bit."
On 30th September, Coopers Square exhibited a giant motorised can car and ranged from the Conkers Visitor Centre began two days of children’s workshops, and offering activities revolving around the recycling theme. An environmental relay race took place in the centre and children also made environmentally-friendly bird feeding trays out of plastic bottles.
Meanwhile, the Staffordshire Borough Council provided information on recycling and reuse schemes, as well as guides on sustainability and sustainable living—from home composting to the use of real nappies for babies.

Seeds of Change

Chelmsley Wood shopping centre celebrated the 2006 Solihull Arts Festival with free school workshops held onsite. From 23rd to 29th September, more than 300 children from six local schools took part in the UK centre’s workshops on nature and the environment, with participants designing and making their own tree. Each class also received a tree to take back to school and plant.
"This is the third year that we have invited schools to come down to the centre and take part in free workshops," said Barrie Jones, centre manager.
"The schools have a great time and we enjoy giving something back to the community."
Chelmsley Wood ran two workshops daily during the week-long programme.