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The purpose of this study is to identify retailers selling sustainable apparel goods on the internet and examine their sustainable initiatives in the supply chain based on the United Nation's Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), one of the most widely used sustainability reporting guidelines.

A total of 156 sustainable apparel websites were content analyzed based on presence or absence of the website contents. A systematic coding scheme was developed based on previous research on the sustainability of the apparel industry and the GRI.

Findings of this study support the GRI as a useful framework to assess sustainability in online apparel retailers. The most commonly addressed aspects of the GRI that were addressed by companies in this study were the environmental and social aspects. Few sustainable apparel retailers on the internet made initiatives in all three areas of sustainability addressed in the GRI.

This study provides general characteristics of websites as well as endeavours along the supply chain to illustrate a full overview of sustainable apparel retailers online. The initiatives discussed in this study are meant to serve as a guide and inspiration for future researchers, companies and consumers.

This paper aims to investigate consumers' perspectives on sustainable clothing consumption and to examine ways in which this information could influence retailers' policies.

Qualitative research was conducted using focus groups, home tasks and workshops with 99 participants. The sample represented different groups of consumers in relation to their sustainability behaviour.

Focus group participants had a limited awareness of the sustainability impacts of clothing. Where participants displayed pro‐environmental behaviour, this was not necessarily intentional, but was largely a response to other influences. The respondents' maintenance and disposal of clothes were found to be influenced mainly by existing habits and routines, which usually take precedence over awareness of sustainable practice. The research indicated that consumers could be persuaded to change their behaviour in relation to sustainability by being encouraged and enabled to reflect more on their behaviour.

This study uses qualitative research and is limited to UK consumers. Future research in this field could incorporate quantitative methods or in‐depth interviews. Academics could conduct further research and generate theories which apply to the sustainable consumption of clothing.

The findings have implications for retailers, academics and society. Retailers can develop and implement more sustainable policies and practices in relation to clothing production and consumption. There are wider implications for society and the environment in that retailers' practices can impact greatly on the sustainability of the planet's resources.

This paper's originality lies in its assessment of the implications for retailers of consumers' views on the sustainable consumption of clothing.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an exploratory case study of how the UK's top ten food retailers are communicating sustainable consumption agendas to their customers within stores.

The paper begins with a discussion of the growing awareness of the role that retailers, and more particularly food retailers, can play in promoting sustainable consumption. This is followed by a short literature review of current thinking on sustainable consumption. Information obtained from two simple “walk through/visual observation and information collection” surveys conducted within the largest store operated by each of the top ten food retailers within the towns of Cheltenham and Gloucester, UK, provided the empirical material for the case study. The paper concludes with some reflections on how sustainable consumption fits into the large food retailers' business models.

The survey revealed that, while the UK's top ten food retailers were providing customers with some information on sustainable consumption, the dominant thrust of marketing communication within stores was designed to encourage consumption. More generally, the paper concludes that, at best, the UK's leading food retailers are pursuing a weak model of sustainable consumption and that their definitions of, and engagement with, sustainable consumption is driven as much by commercial imperatives as by commitments to sustainability.

This paper provides an accessible review of the extent to which the UK's leading food retailers are communicating sustainable consumption agendas to their customers within stores and as such it will be of value to academics, practitioners, consumer organisations and policy makers interested in the role retailers can play in promoting sustainable consumption.

An in-depth analysis of management and academic literature regarding sustainable development, on the one hand, and retailers' involvement on the other, has been conducted. Related topics such as responsibility (Barthel, 2006; Binninger, 2008; Lauriol, 2004; Pasquero, 2005; Thierry, 2005), trust (Guibert, 1999; Lapeyre & Bonnefont, 2004; Sireix et al., 2004; Swaen & Chumpitaz, 2008), and consumer resistance (Aouina-Mejri & Benhallam, 2009; Peñaloza & Price, 1993; Roux, 2007) have also been investigated. Furthermore, we studied the theoretical corpus of the frameworks used (Stakeholder Theory and Legitimacy Theories).

The purpose of this paper is to offer an exploratory case study of how the UK’s leading retailers are addressing sustainable consumption.

The paper begins with a discussion of the growing awareness of the importance of sustainable consumption and of the role that retailers can play in promoting more sustainable patterns of consumption. This is followed by a short literature review of current thinking on sustainable consumption. The paper draws its empirical information from the top ten UK retailers’ corporate websites and from an observational survey conducted in these retailers’ largest stores in the town of Cheltenham in the UK. The paper concludes with some reflections on how the UK’s leading retailers are addressing sustainable consumption and on how the concept fits into their business models.

The findings reveal that the UK’s top ten retailers make very limited public corporate commitments to sustainable consumption and that while some of these retailers were offering customers some information which might encourage more sustainable shopping behaviour, such information was systematically undermined by marketing messages which were designed to encourage rather than restrict consumption. More critically the paper concludes that the leading retailers’ commitments to sustainable consumption are couched within existing business models centred on continuing growth and that as such they are effectively ignoring the fact that present levels of consumption are not sustainable.

This paper provides an accessible review of the extent to which the UK’s leading food retailers are addressing sustainable consumption and communicating sustainable consumption agendas to their customers within stores, and, as such, it will be of value to academics, practitioners, consumer organizations and policymakers interested in the role retailers can play in promoting sustainable consumption.

Retailers are facing pressure to promote sustainable consumption. Building on literature about the role of retailers as “translators” of the sustainability discourse, this paper studies how retailers cope with this pressure. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study focuses on the Swedish retail sector. In 22 interviews with retail representatives and 13 store observations it explores the way food retailers approach sustainable consumption, particularly focusing on the role retail stores receive in operationalising sustainable consumption.

The retail store is identified as important organisational layer within retailers to operationalise sustainable consumption. However, retailers do not acknowledge this potential sufficiently. An idealised model of multi-layered sensemaking to successfully promote sustainable consumption is presented.

The study results only cover a small part of the entire retail organisation and only provide a snapshot in time of their working. Future research should study how the internal process of translating sustainability to the market develops over time and how it is connected to different parts of the retail organisation (e.g. marketing, HR). More research is also necessary to specify the division of responsibilities between headquarters (HQs) and stores.

This paper proposes a divide of responsibilities between HQs and the individual store to better deal with societal pressures and market demand.

The results of this study add depth to the theoretical notions of “translation” and “sensemaking” in retailers’ efforts to promote sustainable consumption. A model for how this process works is provided.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of distributing sustainable labels on the retailer’s corporate brand. More specifically, the objectives are to investigate how the scope of a portfolio of sustainable labels affects the consumer perceived ethicality (CPE) of the retailer that distributes them and to understand how the perceived ethicality affects retail patronage.

In total, 230 individuals participated in a street intercept survey. Data were analysed with partial least squares structural equation modelling.

Both the perceived scope of the portfolios of collective sustainable labels and retailer-owned sustainable labels improve the CPE of the retailer. In addition, the CPE of the retailer increases patronage. The portfolio of collective sustainable labels has more impact on the CPE of the retailer than the portfolio of retailer-owned labels, but the latter has more impact on retail patronage.

In addition to limitations inherent to the methodology (e.g. survey based on stated behaviours), the model developed is simple and exploratory and does not include potential boundary conditions of the highlighted effects.

Sustainable labels may not only contribute to product sales and product positioning, but also to position the retailer brand by improving the consumer perception of ethicality and indirectly increase retail patronage.

Anchored in the branding literature, this research is the first to conceptualize sustainable labels as a portfolio and measure their collective impact on the retailer’s corporate brand and indirectly on patronage.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how and why choice editing is being used as a tool to promote sustainable consumption, using the choice editing of fish as a case study.

This study is explorative in nature and is based on a case study of choice editing of fish as a product category that has undergone fairly widespread choice editing. The case is built on primary empirical data from three Swedish and four British retailers collected through semi-structured interviews. These retailers are of different sizes, but together represent over 50 per cent of the food retail market in both Sweden and the UK taken by market share.

The findings suggest that the main business case choice editing is the creation of a responsible brand image and is often based on pressure from wider societal norms. The case for choice editing is therefore ultimately reliant on consumer recognition of sustainability issues as valuable, and it is unlikely to be taken up when retailers see no added brand value in acting responsibly on a certain issue. Clearer product-based indicators and stronger governmental regulation of unsustainable products may enable further choice editing for sustainability by retailers. NGOs and the media also play a critical role.

To enable further choice editing for sustainability by retailers, there is a need for clearer product-based indicators and stronger governmental regulation of unsustainable products.

Taking into account retailers' critical position in the value chain, their sector's economic significance and environmental externalities, in addition to the institutional agenda, this paper aims to explore the drivers influencing retailers to shift to more sustainable business models.

The paper utilises the institutional competing logic, including in-depth interviews with major supermarket retail chains and one expert group discussion. The data gathered in Germany and Lithuania were complemented by desk research analysis, including corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and management reports.

The paper provides empirical insights into how multiple drivers through institutional competing logic are brought about influencing the shift to more sustainable business models. The results show that retail chains in both countries implement their sustainability based on triple environmental-legal-financial drivers. However, different types of retail chains–namely premium retailers, typical retailers and discounters–implement their sustainability discourse differently.

Because of the chosen research approach, the results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

Interestingly, retailers “shift” their responsibility to the consumers rather than encourage themselves to make more sustainable choices. The authors observe a more passive and responsive role of retailing chains because of the inherent trade-off between revenue growth and sustainable consumption.

The original contribution lies in exploring how retail chains adapt institutional competing logic and are influenced by multiple drivers when implementing their sustainability activities. In addition, the authors propose a conceptual model for retailers' sustainability management, as well as formulate three research propositions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore consumer perceptions and understanding of sustainable concepts within the context of fashion consumption.

Phenomenological interviews provided a platform to explore fashion sustainability and garment labels from current UK high street fashion retailers were used to stimulate discussion.

The findings identify confusion of how sustainability applies to fashion, particularly for environmental issues and there was scepticism regarding higher pricing for organic cotton. However, motivation to avoid fashion produced under exploitation resulted in avoiding retailers alleged of such practice, paying more for garments and purchasing from established UK retailers.

The idiographic nature of a phenomenological approach may be considered as a limitation, yet this in-depth exploration of participants with similar socio-demographics enables a rich understanding of the discourse experienced within their lifeworlds.

The findings illustrate that consumers are transferring sustainable principles from one context to another, and that by addressing sustainability, fashion retailers could obtain a competitive advantage.

The findings demonstrate consumers’ increased involvement with sustainability and the role expected from fashion retailers.

The research uniquely positions consumers’ reliance on heuristics to guide sustainable preferences, due to the lack of information and this implies that sustainable concepts are increasingly incorporated into everyday behaviours.