A growth in the Dutch food retail is observed. People eat and drink significantly more. 50% of all food is bought in supermarkets and every day over 4 million people in the Netherlands buy their groceries in the supermarket (Rabobank, 2016) (CBL, 2016). However, the current supermarket cannot exist in the future. In its current state, it faces three challenges that need to be addressed; their environmental footprint, the competitive threat of other food segments and the development of online food delivery. As a result of these challenges, the research question in this thesis is: How can a supermarket create value for the environment and still be commercially attractive in the future? As to provide an answer on this research question, the analysis is divided into three parts; the supermarket of 2017, the future of the supermarket, and the environmental impacts of the supermarket.

As a result of the analyses of the three parts, requirements are given for the conceptualisation phase which will be the starting point for the vision in the design brief.

The starting point for the supermarket of the future is the current supermarket in 2017. After, research on the future was conducted by identifying global trends, customer trends and retail trends that eventually provided insights for the future of the supermarket. The trends were found by a combination of future visions of experts, established with interviews, and company reports. As a result, five themes that have a major role in the future of the supermarket were established: personalisation, experience, convenience, transparency and platform.

Based on the book ‘De Verborgen Impact’ and LCA’s, the largest environmental impacts of the supermarket were found. The entire supply chain of the assortment and the physical store are evaluated according to the impacts: water use, land use, fossil energy, raw materials, chemical substances, greenhouse gases and waste. This wide range of impact delivers a complete overview of the environmental impacts. Eventually, the assortment had a significant higher impact than the physical store. The two highest impacts that are identified and that are within the circle of influence are: consumption of animal-based products and food waste. As a result of the environmental analysis, four sustainable strategy solutions are established in order to create a sustainable supermarket: minimal use of recourses, everything is circular economy, promote green products and a net-positive building.

By plotting the five future themes and the four sustainable strategy solutions against each, ideas where generated for the supermarket of the future. Based on the criteria found in the analysis, the Green Protein was chosen as most convenient concept. As a result, research was conducted on the motives and barriers of customers to eat more plant-based proteins instead of animal-based proteins. Since customers require an added benefit for themselves instead of only being good for the world, health and convenience is used as encouragement.

The final design of the Green Protein is part of a supermarket that is divided into types of nutrients; proteins, carbs and vegetables. The layout of the Green Protein is based on the IKEA layout in which the customer first walks through the inspiration part and ends in the assortment part. The goal of the inspiration part is to encourage the customer to eat plant-based proteins by communicating the benefits, such as convenience or health. The goal of the assortment part is offering protein product with emphasize on plant-based proteins (legumes, nuts and seeds, mushrooms and meat substitutes). In the end, sustainability is applied on different levels of the store: store level, presentation level, interaction level, product level and process level.