Enjoy networking and breakfast in the exhibit hall with fellow attendees and connect with exhibitors to learn more about how they are supporting the industry.

Main Session Hall

Join RCC’s President and CEO Kim Furlong and Michael Zabaneh, Vice President Sustainability, as they kick off RCC’s Retail Sustainability Conference. Get ready for an inspiring day of learning, recognition, expanding your connections, and collaborating on new ideas for more sustainable retail in Canada.

Main Session Hall

Join the Honourable Todd McCarthy as he opens RCC’s Retail Sustainability Conference and shares an update on Ontario’s environmental priorities and key initiatives.

Main Session Hall

As sustainability becomes increasingly central to business performance, leaders are being challenged to move faster, think bigger, and operate differently.

Recognized globally for her leadership, including on TIME’s TIME100 Climate list, Kathleen McLaughlin will share what it takes to lead sustainability transformation across one of the world’s largest and most complex retail ecosystems. At Walmart, this work spans climate, supply chains, communities, and economic opportunity, reflecting a model where sustainability is not separate from the business, but deeply embedded within it.

Don’t miss this unique vantage point on how organizations can shift from intention to impact by leveraging scale, partnerships, and innovation to drive measurable change.

Main Session Hall

Every customer transaction is an untapped opportunity for measurable climate action, yet most retailers still treat sustainability as a reporting obligation rather than a growth lever. In this spotlight, Cool Climate Club shares how its Smart Forests™ platform lets retailers embed traceable tree planting into the customer moments that matter most, turning everyday purchases into lasting Canadian reforestation. Discover how brands are moving beyond carbon claims to nature-based impact their customers can see, track, and trust, and how your business can plant its first forest without adding operational complexity.

Main Session Hall

Senior leaders will explore how retailers and brands are responding to the growing risks of climate change and navigating shifting trade dynamics and cost pressures as they build more sustainable, resilient supply chains. The conversation will examine decarbonization, circular product and packaging design, responsible sourcing, and the collaboration needed across complex supplier networks.  

Main Session Hall

Canadian retailers have long called for greater harmonization of EPR programs across the country, but the move toward a common material framework is proving more intensive than many expected. Material reporting shifts from relatively broad classifications of material categories to a level that may require retailers’ visual inspection of packaging to accurately classify materials.  This spotlight will look at why harmonization is still in the right direction, why the transition is particularly difficult for retail, and what companies should be doing now to prepare. . 

Main Session Hall

The drive towards advancing textile circularity is gaining momentum globally, with retailers and brands exploring practical ways to extend product life, reduce waste, and support more circular outcomes. This panel will examine how existing efforts can be strengthened through material innovation, recycling technology, end-market development, policy instruments and incentives, and continued collaboration across the value chain. Panelists will discuss the practical conditions needed to scale solutions and close the loop on textiles. 

Main Session Hall

This session will highlight how eco-design principles, including packaging reduction and increased recycled content, are integrated into product development. Through concrete examples, from recycled fibre tissue products and packaging to trays and food service solutions, we will demonstrate how innovation and sustainability go hand in hand to support our customers’ ESG ambitions.

Main Session Hall

An update on Canada’s current sustainability landscape, focused on federal and provincial developments and initiatives surrounding EPR, plastics, circularity and decarbonization. The session will highlight RCC’s advocacy priorities and practical solutions to support members, ensure the voice of Canada’s retail sector is heard in shaping existing and emerging policies, and share opportunities for collaboration through RCC’s range of sustainability committees.

Enjoy networking and refreshments in the exhibit hall with fellow attendees and connect with exhibitors to learn more about how they are supporting the industry.

Main Session Hall

Sustainability expectations are shaped by broader Social Values, including trust, responsibility, convenience, price sensitivity and the desire to make a positive impact. Drawing on Environics Research’s Social Values framework, this interactive session will explore how these priorities vary across generations or consumer mindsets – and what that means for retailers. In this interactive working session, attendees will gain a practical framework for making sustainability strategies and communications more relevant, credible and accessible.

Room 104 AB

Extended Producer Responsibility is reshaping packaging from a compliance requirement into a business cost and strategy issue. This panel featuring a retailer, EY, and UL Solutions will explore how better product and packaging data can reduce risk, support smarter decisions, and strengthen financial planning. 

Room 104 CD

Led by BGIS, this panel will explore practical approaches to reducing emissions across retail, commercial and manufacturing facilities. Speakers will examine how organizations are prioritizing retrofits, electrification, energy management and other building investments while balancing capital costs, operational requirements and emissions-reduction goals. The discussion will highlight lessons from real-world projects and what is needed to accelerate decarbonization across diverse building portfolios. 

Enjoy networking and lunch in the exhibit hall with fellow attendees and connect with exhibitors to learn more about how they are supporting the industry.

 Main Session Hall

As producer responsibility programs continue to expand across Canada, governments, producers, and service providers increasingly call for greater harmonization. But what should actually be harmonized—and where do regional differences create better environmental and operational outcomes? Leaders from producer responsibility organizations will discuss real-world experience implementing EPR programs across different provinces, exploring where national consistency reduces cost and complexity, and where flexibility is essential to meet regulatory requirements, market conditions, geography, infrastructure, and community needs.

Room 104 AB

Rising EPR costs and operational complexity remain a persistent thorn in the side of retailers and manufacturers. Our expert panel will discuss potential solutions to improve alignment between provincial and territorial EPR systems. 

Room 104 CD

Beverage packaging is evolving rapidly, driven by new formats and technologies, changing consumer expectations, and the growing demand for more circular systems. This facilitated panel will explore emerging packaging trends, system innovation and modernization, and how greater collaboration across jurisdictions can help address shared challenges and advance circularity

Enjoy networking and refreshments in the exhibit hall with fellow attendees and connect with exhibitors to learn more about how they are supporting the industry.

Main Session Hall

Retailers are navigating growing sustainability expectations alongside evolving regulations, reporting requirements and resource constraints. In this five-minute spotlight, WM will share how organizations can use data, insights and operational expertise to identify opportunities, prioritize initiatives and turn sustainability goals into practical, measurable results. Attendees will gain insight into approaches that can help strengthen sustainability programs, improve resource efficiency, advance circularity objectives and track progress, with a clear focus on moving from ambition to scalable action. 

Main Session Hall

Join a conversation about the evolving landscape for packaging and paper EPR. We will explore key developments and considerations, opportunities for collaboration to strengthen EPR, and how the sector can support innovation, effective regulation and better outcomes for industry, communities and the environment.

Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Plastics Regulatory Affairs Division will share the latest federal updates on plastics, packaging and circularity, including current regulatory priorities, policy development and areas of ongoing stakeholder engagement. This session will provide participants with a clearer understanding of where federal work is headed, how it may affect producers, retailers and packaging value chains, and what businesses should be watching as Canada continues to advance a more circular plastics economy. 

Main Session Hall

In a time of consumer burnout, fear, and apathy, research shows that simple, bold messages are needed to break through to consumers and build trust. Business is trusted to act where others aren’t, and retailers are well positioned to lead. With direct consumer relationships and control over private brand supply chains, retailers have the tools to drive meaningful EPR performance on recycling and recycled content without compromising brand or cost goals. Paul Nowak, Executive Director of GreenBlue, presents a practical roadmap for how retailers can leverage their private brand supply chain to meet EPR goals recycling and recycled content while building consumer trust that turns sustainability into a competitive advantage

Geopolitical tensions, shifting trade flows, industrial competition and economic pressures are reshaping global supply chains and the economics of sustainability. Drawing on McKinsey’s global research and market insights, Jonas Oxgaard will explore what these developments mean for circularity, decarbonization and the transition to more sustainable materials and technologies. The session will examine the balance between building domestic capacity and maintaining competitive global supply chains, and the role of policy, investment and market demand in scaling solutions. What will it take to advance sustainability while maintaining affordability, resilience and global competitiveness? 

Main Session Hall

One of the most influential sustainability executives in the consumer goods industry joins RCC’s Retail Sustainability Conference for an in-depth conversation. Ann Tracy has spent three decades at Colgate-Palmolive, and since becoming its first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer in 2020, she has repositioned the company’s net-zero agenda as a trigger for commercial growth.

In this fireside chat, Tracy explores the business case in full: how embedding sustainability into core strategy has driven measurable results, including more than $1 billion in energy savings over two decades, and how the company is scaling circularity, responsible sourcing, and emissions reduction across a $20 billion global operation.

This is a rare opportunity to hear directly from a leader who has done it and gain insight into what it takes to turn sustainability ambition into competitive advantage.

Enjoy networking and refreshments with fellow attendees and connect with exhibitors to learn more about how they are supporting the industry.

Join our awards gala dinner that celebrates the best of Canadian retail sustainability.

Separate Ticket Required

Award of Distinction Recipients