An increasing number of retailers and designers are looking for sustainable solutions for store interiors. For the retail environments industry, meeting this growing demand presents challenges, not the least of which is understanding what green means to the industry.

What makes a store green? LEED certification is one way of showing a building environment's sustainability, but many retail design projects that include sustainable design elements are not measured against a LEED rating system. Other green building rating systems have proven less popular. Consequently, the industry does not have a universally accepted definition of a green retail environment, particularly one focused on a store's interior.

A green yardstick is even more elusive for the companies providing products and services for retail environments. For materials products, some certifications are available, but each measures only one type of environmental effect, such as indoor air quality. And more than one certification is available for some categories of materials, so materials providers are left wondering which, if any, certification to seek. For fixture and visual merchandising product manufacturers, the waters are even murkier, as no certification program seems to fit their products specifically.

Further complicating the issue is the word green itself. Traditionally, it has referred to lessening adverse effects upon the environment, while the word sustainable has referred to contributing to economic growth and social equity as well as environmental management. Today, the two terms are often used interchangeably. In the retail environments industry, the focus has been on ecological issues such as pollution and the depletion of natural resources, but retailers and builders are now expanding their sustainable efforts to include community-related efforts such as supporting a local work force.

With the aid of its Green 100 member task force, A.R.E. is taking bold new steps to define green retail environments and address the needs of members and retailers in creating a sustainable retail world.