Need to Know

Los Angeles – Start-up brand Society is offering premium, natural cleaning products at a discounted rate, available through a dedicated membership scheme.

Society's lines include soaps, a stain remover and multi-surface spray that are all non-toxic, and devoid of ingredients such as artificial dyes, synthetic fragrances, petrochemicals, ammonia and bleach. While the branding for green cleaning products tends to be nature-inspired, Society has teamed with FAY Design to instead produce brightly-coloured, patterned packaging with the ambition that consumers won’t hide the products under the sink.

Operating a membership model, Society invites customers to pay a yearly fee of $99 (£75.81, €86.28) in order to purchase the products at cost price, for example a non-toxic counter spray at $4.99 (£3.82, €4.35). ‘We think of ourselves as a mashup of Trader Joe’s and Costco, but online,’ says cofounder Nandeet Mehta.

In order to drive awareness of the brand, Society has launched an Indiegogo campaign offering lifetime membership and starter packages. The brand is championing the concept of Accessible Premium by bringing natural, more considered products to the masses.

London – The latest campaign by the coloured gemstone miner uses movement and dance to boldly visualise its CSR (corporate social responsibility) practices.

The film is set after hours in a modern art gallery, with sculptures that come to life, each representing an element of Gemfields’ sustainable values. For example, an emerald and ruby female form embodies the transparency of the gemstones it mines, while a Baobab tree reflects how the company reduces impact on its mining sites and maintains biodiversity.

The Every Piece Unique campaign was created to drive greater understanding of the effort Gemfields undertakes to ensure responsible sourcing of emeralds and rubies from its mines in Zambia and Mozambique.

By using the medium of film – rather than simply listing its CSR efforts on a website – companies such as Gemfields and Stella McCartney are drawing attention to their positive practices in a more creative way.

A new study by Juniper Research, entitled Future Stores & the Retailers Building Them, explores how technology is infiltrating the store. It found that smart checkout technology, which includes mobile scan-and-go as well as frictionless payment stores like Amazon Go, are expected to process over $45bn (£35bn, €39bn) in transactions by 2023.

The study highlights the potential for self-scanning apps as an alternative to ambitious ‘Just Walk Out’ technology, estimating that 32m shoppers will be using these apps by 2023. Juniper also names French grocery store Carrefour as the most technologically-advanced store in the world, deploying tools such as facial recognition that competitors are just beginning to pilot.

For more on how invisible, seamless technology should be built into the foundations of future brick-and-mortar retail spaces, read our macrotrend Storefront Salvation.