IBM Welcome Letter

Isn’t it interesting that green is used as a symbol to represent both the environment and money? And how appropriate! Indeed, the convergence of economic pressure, consumer interest and environmental factors is forcing retailers to take notice and adapt processes, policies and products in order to become greener – in both senses of the term. They must continue to make money and grow in challenging economic times, where energy prices fluctuate wildly and become an ever-more-important part of operating costs, and respond to consumer demand (and their own sense of responsibility) to care for the environment.

The breadth of retailers featured in this section demonstrates that the entire industry is beginning to take strong steps to understand its own impact on the environment, and then to reduce it – and with it, the costs associated with lighting stores, running freezers and data centers, manufacturing and transporting goods, etc. IT is at the core of all these efforts, and obtaining the right data, analyzing and optimizing it are often the most difficult parts of any “green” project. That’s one reason IBM is proud to be sponsoring this special section of STORES.

At IBM, we have built on our long history of environmental stewardship to develop a broad set of offerings that help retailers become greener. From understanding, managing and reducing the retailer’s overall carbon footprint, to minimizing the energy consumption in stores and the supply chain to our leadership position in energy efficient servers, POS and data centers, we help “green” all aspects of the retailer’s operations. And that’s good for the environment, for talking to consumers who care about it — and for reducing costs.

So, on behalf of IBM, I am thrilled to welcome you to this green section of STORES. We hope it will lead to even larger adoption of a green agenda by the industry, to growth, to more loyal consumers and to a better world.

Dr. Françoise LeGoues
Vice President and CTO for Retail, IBM