During a session of the September installment of the Women in Retail and Total Retail Virtual Exchange, Francesca Mahoney, head of sustainability at Petco, discussed how the company pivoted from being a traditional pet retailer to a health and wellness company, and how sustainability became central to the company’s mission.

While sustainability has always been a part of Petco’s mission, Mahoney said an overarching enterprise strategy on sustainability was missing when she joined the retailer in June 2020. As she dove headfirst into the job — she was the only Petco employee focused on sustainability full time — she took the following steps in her first few months:

  • identified sustainability initiatives that were currently underway at Petco that could be improved upon;
  • worked on building foundational elements, like identifying near-term environmental opportunities and laying the groundwork for a longer term strategy that looked at everything around environmental, social and governance topics; and
  • created a sustainability task force — a group of individuals at Petco who are passionate about sustainability, who could act as captains for their teams and help drive the organization forward.

Those steps helped Mahoney and the Petco team define what makes a product sold on the company’s shelf sustainable. That led to Petco launching a sustainability shop and setting a goal to have 50 percent of its products be considered sustainable by the end of 2025.

“We’re really letting the customer shop for what’s most important to them,” noted Mahoney.

To view Mahoney’s complete interview, along with interviews with other retail leaders, including Brian Seewald, senior vice president, e-commerce, Express; and Bea Dixon, co-founder and CEO of The Honey Pot, register for the on-demand version of the September Women in Retail and Total Retail Virtual Exchange.