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Eco Complaints At ‘Good’ Stores

July

3rd

Piers Fawkes

For some reason this morning I had my good citizen cap on my walk to work down Broadway between Union Square and SoHo I went into two stores to complain that they had their doors open and their air conditioning on. The reason I chose these two stores rather than the Best Buy or Urban Outfitters was that these brands (American Apparel and Body Shop) both trade on their conscious credentials.

There’s an element of ‘doing good’ in both retailers’ brand values. Body Shop has a ‘Protect Our Planet‘ mission. American Apparel doesn’t talk much these days about it’s eco credentials but it has major concerns for what it considers as the community.

Some of you might not know but there is a strong debate in New York about stores that leave their doors open while their air conditioning units were going - and some officials in New York have suggested a law against it. Saying that, maybe the debate is all in the media and none in the street: when I asked the assistants in both stores if anyone had complained before about their open doors and they said no. The Body Shop girl seemed fairly concerned about the idea, the American Apparel girl and her manager seemed to just see me as somebody ten years too old in the store and not minding his own business. Well, at least some brand values ring true.