Ep. 56 Retail's Sustainability Re-Think with Martin Kingdon - Insights and Sustainability Director POPAI UK and Ireland

ABOUT MARTIN KINGDON:Martin’s Profile: linkedin.com/in/martin-kingdon-121b693Websites:popai.co.uk/sustainability/ (Company)popai.co.uk (Company)Email: martin@popai.co.ukBIO:Martin has been involved with the display industry for twenty five years as a volunteer, board member and for twenty years Director geneneralHe has been responsible for Insight since 2010, Sustainability since 2019 and has defined POPAI’s offer including setting up the Sustainability council representing all sectors of the industry, the POPAI Sustainability Standard for corporate accreditation and the Sustain® global eco-design indicator tool now widely used in the UK and overseas.He has spoken extensively around the world on many aspects of the display market, sustainability and shopper insight. SHOW INTRO: Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast. Over our 4 seasons we have focused on “Dialogues on DATA: Design Architecture, Technology and the Arts”. NXTLVL features provocateurs for whom disruption and transformation are a way of engaging in work and play every day.They include leading scientists, artists, musicians, architects, entertainers and story tellers whose research, exploration and built work brings new understanding of the impact and relevance of place-making to the world. On the show, we focus on what’s now and what’s next.On this episode we talk with Martin Kingdon Insight and Sustainability Director of POPAI UK and Ireland about the impact that retail stores, and all of their merchandising units and displays, have of on the environment.First though, a few thoughts on retail, building sustainably and the carbon footprint of stores… *         *         *         *         *         *         *On your last shopping trip, to any retailer, what do you remember most?Was it the crowd or the sales associates?That you could, or couldn’t, find what you were looking for?If you were walking the aisle of your favorite grocer, you might recall the product displays, how fantastically the apples were built into a pyramid, the water being misted across the fresh produce crisp keeping it crisp.  The meat counters or the smell of bread being baked.You might have even thought, why on earth they keep putting the milk at the far back corner, but then you’d probably be savvy enough to know that’s a ploy to exposed you to as much merchandise as they can as you go on your dairy search and rescue mission.If you were shopping your favorite apparel store you might noticed that the mannequins were decked out in new outfits, that some new colorful tops were on the table just after you entered or that those big tables always seemed to be a constant state of disarray with sales associates busying over them putting things in neat stacks to be upended by customers a moment later.You might notice signage, or the lack of it, when you are trying to find something. You might remark about the lighting, paint colors, a pattern on the floor and perhaps some architectural element.Chances are, that you probably don’t recall, in any detail, the things the stuff was sitting on, hanging from or enclosed in. Those things often slip into the background, receding away from your conscious awareness. And that would also be by design.My first boss in the retail world at New Vision Studios in New York, the late Joe Weishar, would remind be that the merchandise was the star of the show and all the rest of what was in the store were merely supporting actors or s