Radical Transparency: Blockchain-Boosted Comms

Blockchain – a tamper-resistant data chain that straddles multiple businesses – will be key to information sharing and authenticating brand practices in an ultra-networked future. Via new consumer interfaces (mobile devices, online platforms, voice command), radical transparency will fuel the snowballing demand for eco-ethical goods and validate higher price tags.   

Active Intel & How-To Apps

A lack of convenient initiatives has thwarted consumers’ desire to match sustainable intentions with positive actions. Now, a new breed of real-time apps reveal not only provenance, reviews and ingredients, but also how-to details concerning use, resale and recycling. The most advanced use the Internet of Things (IoT) to communicate directly via products or receipts.

Demand-Only E-Commerce

Innovative new digital platforms, in-store and online, are inverting the wasteful standard retail model of ‘produce first, market later’, which often leaves huge overstocks. Instead, they’re building hype and only creating what’s requested. Akin to microfactories, these concepts illustrate the evolution of customisation, and link back to our prediction of stores as finishing salons.

Invisible Packaging & Zero-Waste Food Apps

Combinations of advanced image recognition technology and AI are producing in-store tracking systems so sharp, they eliminate the need for packaging to confirm what a consumer has in their basket. Elsewhere, geo-smart, inventory-connected supermarket apps are soaking up the surplus by informing shoppers of about-to-be binned foodstuffs.

Rewarding Sustainable Behaviours

Other tech developments are rethinking loyalty systems, focusing on ingraining sustainable mindsets by digitally rewarding eco-ethical actions. The most exciting seamlessly join the dots between product, brand and service – see the car brand making eco-friendly driving the criteria for perks.  

Organisational E-Tail for Conscious Consumption

Tools that deliver a sense of agency are helping consumers make better choices and combat the negative feelings associated with unethical consumption. Examples range from digital wardrobe concepts that remind people what they’ve already got and connect them to repair or resale services, to browser extensions which clear a direct path to sustainable choices.