It’s a luxury store at the centre of one of London’s most famous shopping districts trying to lead the way on sustainability and with its new plastic-free gift card initiative Selfridges has a big story to tell.

Future London caught up with Daniella Vega, director of sustainability, to learn more about its targets for the future and the importance of selling the message to consumers.

Selfridges was one of the first major retailers to take on the problem of plastic waste when, in 2015, its Project Ocean partnership with ZSL became about plastic in the ocean.

That year they removed all single-use plastic water bottles from their four UK stores, as well as plastic carrier bags and plastic cups from their back of house operation, saving 450,000 bottles and one million cups a year.

Daniella says that having a plastics plan and audit was essential to a phased approach for removing plastics from the business and that they managed to engage staff and the public by using the single-use water bottle as a “flagship species” to simplify the issue. Green stickers were given out to staff who had a reusable container, while blue ones highlighted the number of single-use ones, until they had more green than blue in the office. A simple incentive which worked.

Since then Selfridges have removed microbeads from beauty products, removed plastic straws from food halls and restaurants and launched a CupCycling initiative where coffee cups are recycled and turned into shopping bags.

This year they have also launched garment bags made from recycled plastic bottles and are trialling home-compostable cling film in their restaurant kitchens and paper security stickers. From this summer they will also be converting their gift cards to paper-based alternatives. But what are they doing about the plastic-wrapped branded products in store?

Daniella says the department store has made huge steps in increasing awareness of the plastics issue and the amount of waste it can produce. Success with a coffee cup initiative demonstrates how the 'closed-loop' system can work.

“In 2017 we looked at coffee cup recycling and worked with one of our partners Croppers, our paper supplier, to close the loop so we now have a separate waste stream and all of the coffee cups go to Croppers and they make our craft bags," she said.

“We’re not talking of tonnes of plastic saved there but that example is so visible to our customers and our team members. And then we did the same with garment carriers, and it's these stories, which individually are quite small, but people interacted with that in a huge way internally and on social media […] it raises the awareness and focuses the mind,” she said.

She notes customers are increasingly asking the store to take responsibility for the plastic products it sells.

“They have an expectation that Selfridges really needs to live up to, and they respond very positively when they see the changes. So it's a risk if we get it wrong, but it's an absolute bonus if we get it right.

“We carried out research back in November last year, and what struck me was that, previously customers said responsibility for sustainability lies with the brands. And in November research, the numbers very much changed. Over half of customers said it was a joint responsibility between retailers and brands."

She added that a quarter of those surveyed believed it was department store’s responsibility,

She said: "They see Selfridges as having an ethical filter. And that's one of the reasons they come here because they trust our brand. I thought that was a really interesting shift of perception from customers.”

Although some of the store alternatives, such as compostable cling film, are more expensive “they are also more premium,' according to Daniella.

“We are lucky in the sense that we're a not high street retailer so we're not always looking at volumes, we can balance it more easily […] it’s about finding innovative solutions and reducing the waste,” she said.

Daniella cautioned against talking about sustainability to the detriment of the product in the luxury goods market.

“When we ran Bright New Things [an emerging talent programme for new partners] for the first time, we were looking at different materials and alternatives to cashmere including yak.

"We decided we would give yak a bit of a revitalization and so we called it ‘yakshmere darling’ and it was all very light hearted.

“We did a focus group afterwards and the learning I think, for me, was in the communications and the honesty and transparency that you need to have, that it’s about providing a solution but it's also about giving customers the information that they need to make a better choice.

“They want to know about the brand story first because they're interested in fashion and design. So that comes first and the product and then the sustainability story, and I think if you get that out of order, it's easy to switch people off. If you keep it in the right order then customers are really engaged and positive about the message,” she said.

For this iconic store it is all about luxury with a strong underlying commitment to sustainability.