Via Helping Hands, a website that chronicles efforts by residents of Georgia to help others, I learned all about Macy’s greening of its brand.

It has started a matching gifts campaign to benefit the National Parks Foundation. In addition, since 2008 Macy’s has

* Encouraged nearly 1.5 million customers to switch to online billing statements vs. paper statements;

* Decreased use of office paper by 34 percent and paper used in marketing by 23 percent;

* Increased the proportion of recycled or certified paper used in our marketing materials to 63 percent and in our shopping bags to 82 percent;

* Installed active solar power systems at 40 stores;

* Invested in energy efficiency projects and consumption reduction initiatives to reduce total energy use by 10 percent (in addition to a reduction of 9 percent in the previous five years);

* Substituted biodegradable packing materials instead of foam “peanuts” in shipping online orders;

* Pioneered efforts to reduce the number of empty trucks on the road through the “Empty Miles Service” program, matching trucks/trailers with other shippers to minimize empty loads [emphasis mine]

The article also includes a list of Macy’s goals through 2013.

But does this make Macy’s a restoration company? No, I don’t think so. How could a clothing retailer be a restoration company?

Perhaps by affecting its suppliers’ practices all the way down to the field where the cotton is grown. Perhaps by getting suppliers to switch to fabrics that don’t use so much water and so many chemicals.

Source: “Macy’s Teams Up with National Park Foundation in Effort to Raise $1 Million,” Helping Hands, April 7, 2010