The collaboration between international team of scientists form Germany (Judith Pütter and Melina Steinsträter from Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences), Estonia (Kertu Lääts and Toomas Haldma from University of Tartu) and Lithuania (Lina Dagilienė and Viktorija Varaniūtė from Kaunas University of Technology) resulted in research “Sustainability management in German and Baltic retailing: communication patterns in Covid-19 circumstances”. The research results were presented in the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Technology and Entrepreneurship (ICTE).
Retailers are actors in charge of integrating the sustainable activities of the different stakeholders along the supply chain, particularly between producers and consumers. During the last year because of Covid-19 pandemic, retailing sector changed its activities as regards logistics, more safe packaging, additional safety requirements in stores, going online and other particular issues to keep customers and improve customer service. Hence, sustainability management and transfer into communicating to their consumers how much they value their satisfaction and wellbeing, gains a momentum. It becomes important to explore sustainability communication of retail chains, whether and how it changed because of Covid19. Taking into consideration retailers’ critical position in the value chain, their sector’s economic significance and environmental externalities, the aim of this paper is to explore communication patterns of retail chains as a way of sustainability management in Covid-19 circumstances. Web scan approach and content analysis was carried out to reveal sustainability communication patterns due to the influence of Covid-19. Additionally, the paper provides an overview of retailing markets in Estonia, Germany, and Lithuania by highlighting the local context in each country.
