Reitan Convenience is promoted as a value driven convenience retailer, operating in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. The 128-year-old company specialises in franchise operation within kiosk and convenience formats, including brands such as 7-Eleven, Pressbyrån, Narvesen and R-kioski.
According to Reitan Convenience Sweden Chief Sustainability Officer Malin Eklund, sustainability is vitally important to the retailer in Sweden, with an extensive and “frankly very ambitious” strategy centred around the ‘Anthropocene’ – a new geologic epoch defined by humans’ massive impact on the planet – that is incorporated in everything it does.
“The challenges of sustainability are multidimensional and complex, spanning from the planetary scale to the individual,” she says, noting climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater scarcity, gender inequality and human health as examples.
But as the company redefines its operations in line with the goal of a sustainable future, says Ms Eklund, Reitan Convenience believes it must find ways to make sustainability profitable.
“It’s a way for us to secure our future,” she says. “No one needs a convenience store on a dead planet.”
The launch of Reitan Convenience’s PBX concept in Stockholm, Sweden, last October is said to be one way of making this “major transition”. The new store is referred to as the retailer’s “living lab”.
“Our ambition with PBX is to create the world’s most sustainable convenience store,” says Ms Eklund. “And to do so, we also need to make sure that we find a profitable business model, fit for the future of convenience stores, that we can incorporate in our existing stores.
“In PBX, we experiment and try new things: new services to offer our customers and… products that are good for our planet and for people living on it. What works in PBX will subsequently be brought into our existing bands Pressbyrån and 7-Eleven.
“We haven’t got everything figured out yet, but we’re convinced that this is the most efficient way to move forward.”
Read the article in full in the April issue of Convenience World.
