Light at end of the aisle

BOOK REVIEW: Richard Nesbitt review Tescopoly by Andrew Simms (Constable & Robinson. £7.99).

Billed as an account of "modern corporate greed and how and why we should resist it", this book is a timely insight into the retailing world of Tesco and other similar giants. We all know about globalisation. But did you know it's wrecking your life and it's time to say stop?

Andrew Simms' Tescopoly is a must-read for those who find going to a supermarket a modern-day torture.

Simm is policy director and head of climate change programme at the New Economics Foundation (NEF). They describe themselves as a "think and do tank".

The foundation's goal is to promote a progressive view of welfare economics and environmentalism. Their reports have described the lack of shops and services in "Ghost Town Britain" and the fact all the shops in those towns are the same in "Clone Town Britain". Its reports have been criticised by strategic advisers to retailers such as Fripp Sanderman and Partners as they challenge the fundamentals of the dominant retail model in Britain.

In July 2006 the foundation produced their "Happy Planet Index", intended to challenge existing indices of a state's success, such as gross domestic product and human development index.

Simms does not pull his punches. He charts the moment when the promise of choice turned into something altogether different and unattractive. Although Tesco occupies a centre stage in his analysis, there is plenty of misery for other fellow travellers such as Wal-Mart.

Simms is of the view that "the slide into corporate sameness, greased by the logical demands of economic globalisation, is removing nourishment from the human mind as surely as the frozen burger and fried chicken chains took it from our food".

He opines that chains such as Tesco are the living embodiment of standardisation.Although Tesco may be well-motivated, an unintended consequence has been the erosion of distinctiveness and difference, which should be the hallmark of the retail offer. Simms convincingly argues that chainstores kill communities.

We learn that British and American shopping lives are beginning to converge in the "dead zone", a reference in the US to the great suburban sprawl that depends on "big box" stores to fill our homes and stomachs.

Petrol-hungry 4x4s shuttle their occupants between home, work and the store. It doesn't matter which came first: the "big box" or the suburb. They now need each other, as well as a constant supply of cheap oil to feed the addiction that holds their co-dependent relationship together. Simms notes that this hungry monotony is growing ever larger in Britain. Despite Ireland's economic miracle, his references are depressingly close to the city and town scapes emerging here.

By any measure Tesco is a retailing success in traditional terms. Having transformed itself from Britain's third-ranking supermarket by sales to the third-largest in the world, it is now poised to take on retailing in the US. However, one reason for this foray across the Atlantic is a slowing in sales growth in its British stores because of subdued consumer spending and increased competition.

Tescopoly - billed as an account of "modern corporate greed and how and why we should resist it" - is a timely insight into the retailing world of Tesco and other similar giants that is thought-provoking and frightening. The good news is that Simms thinks there is light at the end of the aisle.

Many things attract Simms' attention to detail. In failing to account for the environment, he notes that we end up treating the planet as if it were a business in liquidation.

He is against the current approach of dealing with carbon emissions by effectively licensing emitters if they do something "green" elsewhere.

Large food retailers can price at realistically low levels because they don't pay the environment costs of producing what they sell. However, Simm's takes heart in the work of a think-tank called Tomorrow's Company, which comprises some of the largest global multinationals. It enquired into corporate responsibility for such companies that feared losing their "social license to operate". In other words, if public disapproval gets too great, it can get in the way of making a big enough profit.

Simms argues that Tesco doesn't have a good record of engaging in the social responsibility debate. The recent, if much flaunted, plan by Tesco to promote a range of social and environmental issues leaves him unconvinced. He notes that Tesco's core business model doesn't really provide for what is promised and without clear independent monitoring or verification it's hard to know if and when targets are ever met.

He does offer his own alternative plan. He asks what Tesco's plan would look like if you were to match the rhetoric to responsibility. His resulting 10-point plan, which deals with such matters as "market power, fair-trade, healthy living, global warming and waste reduction", makes great reading.

If you are interested in how the community we live in is or should be affected by retailing, this book is a must. It should be mandatory coursework for all students of business and those shaping our future.

Richard Nesbitt SC is company chairman of Arnotts