Capstone Projects

Driving Sales through Sustainability at an Emerging Outdoors Retailer

Program: Sustainable Management Bachelor's
Location: Colorado (onsite)
Student: Hillarie Madden

After a century of experience in the outdoor retailer market Emerging Sustainable Retailer will need to leverage their strong environmental conscious history to appeal to the next generation of customers. In this century consumers are now more than ever are concerned about the state of climate change. For ESR multiple actions this year highlight their sustainable impact. First customers demand to see high quality and responsible sourcing of materials in their fashion. Second, consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products and this economic impact is key to success for the brands sustainability efforts.

Overall, the company is just in the beginning stages of sustainability changes. Many challenges are yet to come, such as dealing with lifetime warranties, guaranteeing fair trade practices of the employees that make the cloths, and participation of management who sell the products. There have been changes in terms of transparency of sustainability goals, but no clear answers on how to achieve them. In the future the company may need to collect more data and information for a sustainability report.