The shopping centre has invested in a number of schemes to cut carbon emissions

Cribbs Causeway shopping centre has been recognised for its eco efforts after launching a number of schemes to help it become more environmentally friendly. The Mall is one of only a few UK retail destinations to secure the so-called BREEAM excellent rating, according to its owners.

The award follows a comprehensive environmental programme by Cribbs including a campaign called ‘People, Planet, Purpose’ aimed at helping shoppers and tenants understand how the Mall is becoming more energy efficient.

Changes include installing LED lighting across 98 per cent of the site; investing in a solar thermal domestic hot water system powering hot water taps across toilet blocks; and replacing its inefficient plant with modern heating-cooling and fresh air systems.

The shopping centre has also introduced a robotic cleaning machine, which it says uses 35 per cent less water than traditional cleaning methods, and has developed a wildflower garden with beehives to boost biodiversity across the estate.

Other schemes include a new recycling strategy within the centre; reinstating a recycling coffee grinds initiative for shoppers to collect unwanted coffee grinds for their gardens; and regularly recycling unused uniforms from staff.

“The award highlights all the hard work the team have undertaken over the past few years as we strive to become one of the most sustainability-friendly destinations in the country,” said Katie Searle, director of asset management at Sovereign Centros from CBRE, which provides asset management to Cribbs.

“Becoming BREEAM certified is one of the key steps on this journey and we are looking forward to working closely with our partners at Savills, tenants and the local community to implement new ideas to not only support our ESG goals, but also those of our retailers and the wider community.”

BREEAM – or building research establishment environmental assessment method – is an international system used to measure and certify the environmental and sustainability performance of buildings and infrastructure.

The certification follows wider investment by Cribbs, including £300,000 in pedestrian and cycle pathway extensions; installing more electric vehicle charging points; and collaborating with local travel networks to offer staff subsidised rates on public transport.

Elsewhere, the shopping centre has launched a free events calendar, while also investing in first aid, mental health, and dementia and autism awareness training for its guest services team, it said.

It has also refurbished its accessibility unit and introduced care packages and new sanitary bins across male toilets as part of the ‘Boys Need Bins’ campaign – a public health initiative calling on the UK government to make sanitary disposal bins a legal requirement in all male public and workplace restrooms.

Group told investors on Tuesday that it wants to control more than half of Hugo Boss

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group is considering a move to remove the boardroom chair at Hugo Boss, as it set out fresh ambitions to increase its stake in the German fashion giant.

The retail conglomerate, founded by the British billionaire, told investors on Tuesday that it is seeking to acquire more than half of Hugo Boss. It already holds close to 48 per cent of the business, positioning it as the company’s largest shareholder.

Frasers Group’s announcement cast doubt over the future of Stephan Sturm as chairman of Hugo Boss’s supervisory board, hinting it could stage a coup to unseat him.

The group stated: “Frasers is currently reviewing whether it continues to support Mr. Stephan Sturm in his position as the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Hugo Boss.”

A potential push to oust Sturm would be the latest chapter in Frasers’ well-documented history of boardroom clashes. The group has built a reputation for acquiring stakes in rival firms and leveraging these positions to push aggressively for internal change, as reported by City AM.

Sturm has held the role of chair of Hugo Boss’s supervisory board since May last year, while Frasers chief executive Michael Murray occupies a seat on the board.

Hugo Boss’s supervisory board sits above its managing board, overseeing its operations and appointing its members.

Last month, Frasers raised its stake in the German fashion house to 47.9 per cent – a holding valued at nearly €1.5bn. Frasers had put forward a £1.7bn bid for the entire business, but this was firmly rejected as “inadequate” by Hugo Boss.

The UK retail giant instead turned its attention to shareholders, acquiring approximately 17 per cent of Hugo Boss through its €38-per-share offer.

Frasers has reportedly been lobbying to install Murray, Ashley’s son-in-law, in the role of chief executive at Hugo Boss.

Throughout 2024, Frasers accumulated stakes in luxury bagmaker Mulberry and online fashion retailer Boohoo, yet fell short in its efforts to secure board representation at either company.

Earlier this year, Ashley launched a £166m takeover bid for Australian footwear firm Accent, simultaneously calling for the ousting of its chairman over alleged “poor performance”.

The group’s pursuit of Hugo Boss forms part of Ashley’s broader ambition to drive his retail empire further upmarket, having originally founded Sports Direct.

Last month, Frasers snapped up struggling department store chain Harvey Nichols out of administration for approximately £40m.

The group, which also owns the upmarket fashion brand Flannels, stated that its acquisition of Harvey Nichols would build upon its “elevation strategy, strengthening its luxury positioning”.

Ashley established Frasers Group in 1982, and its portfolio of brands now includes Jack Wills, Evans Cycles, Lonsdale and Slazenger.

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Logistics company OneRail is launching a platform using Nvidia‘s artificial intelligence software to help retailers make faster decisions on the most efficient delivery options at scale, CNBC has learned.

The new platform, called OmniStar, allows retailers to use AI to evaluate all of their delivery options and identify the best one for each individual order, using OneRail’s proprietary data.

The last-mile delivery company told CNBC the new platform will allow smaller companies to deliver at scale and improve margins to compete with the retail giants of the world, including Amazon and Walmart.

As e-commerce grows, retailers have had to keep up with surging demand and invest in nimble supply chains to optimize their efficiency. But those manual processes are often fragmented across the retailer and the logistics businesses.

“If you don’t have the ability to make lightning-fast decisions, you’re giving up margin,” OneRail CEO Bill Catania told CNBC. “Last-mile fulfillment is expensive.”

Where choosing the best routing for a package may have previously taken 20 minutes, OneRail said its platform can do it in two and a half minutes leveraging AI. That time saved means retailers can operate larger, faster and more precise supply chains, Catania said.

“That’s where the artificial intelligence comes in. It’s making those kinds of decisions extremely rapidly, and so to do that, that’s where the Nvidia hardware and the software comes in and really makes this thing work at scale,” said David Daeschler, the head of AI at OneRail.

Daeschler said the company began partnering with Nvidia three years ago to explore ways to incorporate AI into the logistics process.

“The result is a real-time decision layer that can route an order to the right carrier and delivery mode at the right cost, rather than relying on static rules or manual planning,” said Azita Martin, Nvidia’s vice president and general manager of retail and consumer packaged goods.

Catania said OneRail’s proprietary data, which includes a network of more than 12 million drivers and over 1,000 logistics partners, is being used to train the AI on the most efficient routes and delivery options.

“It’s for the benefit of them and us: We operate more efficiently. They save money and provide a better customer experience,” Daeschler said.

The company told CNBC its platform has already been deployed with some customers, including a large tire distributor that saw OmniStar save the company a run rate of $40 million over three years because it’s able to use its resources more efficiently.

It’s also estimating the platform will surpass $6 billion in gross merchandise volume in the fourth quarter.

Nvidia’s Martin said the platform will allow retailers to make much faster decisions.

“For retailers, the bigger value is the ability to evaluate more scenarios, respond more quickly as conditions change and improve delivery economics without sacrificing service,” Martin said.

OneRail said the platform could help smaller retailers compete more effectively on delivery speed and efficiency.

OneRail announced a partnership earlier this year with FedEx to bring same-day delivery services to all of its customers, joining a race of retailers trying to offer their customers the best and fastest delivery options. That partnership will now allow OneRail to better work with smaller businesses as well, Catania added.

“We’re kind of doing for delivery what ChatGPT and Anthropic have done for words – it all works the same way,” Daeschler said. “They give people more access to knowledge. We’re giving people access to being able to do delivery in a way that’s affordable. … That’s all done based on original models, training on data that we have, just like words on the internet.”

Parents of seriously ill children should be given three months of paid leave so they do not have to choose between holding down a job and being at their child’s bedside, the children’s commissioner for England has said.

Dame Rachel de Souza is calling for parents whose children develop serious physical or mental health conditions to receive 12 weeks of leave at 90 per cent of their normal pay.

The proposal, known as Hugh’s Law, is named after Hugh Menai-Davis, who died from cancer in 2021 aged six. His parents, Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis, have campaigned for changes to employment law after watching families try to keep working from hospital while their children underwent treatment.

De Souza said parents had described making “impossible choices” as they tried to care for seriously ill or disabled children while holding down their jobs. “We should never force parents to choose between holding down a job and being by their child’s bedside,” she said. “Our existing employment rights are failing parents and carers … Families of seriously ill or disabled children desperately need a form of paid leave that enables them to care for and spend time with their child following a diagnosis or crisis in their child’s health.”

Ceri Menai-Davis told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that the proposed protection would work in a similar way to maternity or paternity leave, recognising that parents need time away from work at critical moments in their child’s life.

“At the moment, parents do not have a legal right to be at the bedside of their child, to leave work and do what any parent would do,” he said. “Hugh’s Law would, in effect, protect parents for up to 12 weeks so they can just down tools and go be with their child and do what really matters most and be a parent in the most harrowing time of your life.”

Hugh was diagnosed with cancer during the Covid pandemic in 2020. His father said: “We watched parents trying to navigate the workplace, in the hospital room, next to their child, taking Zoom calls, writing reports, being pressured by bosses, whilst on the other side of the screen their child is receiving life-saving treatment.”

The case made to employers

Menai-Davis argued that the policy could also benefit employers by helping them to retain staff. Parents with a seriously ill child would leave work regardless, he said, while replacing an employee could cost significantly more than supporting them through a period of paid leave. Separate research has found that the majority of UK businesses have no policies in place to support informal carers in their workforce.

Employers already administer one comparable entitlement. Since April 2025, parents of babies admitted to neonatal care have had a right to up to 12 weeks of neonatal care leave, although statutory pay for that leave is a flat rate of £187.18 a week rather than a percentage of salary.

The children’s commissioner’s office said the financial strain could be particularly severe for families facing long hospital stays, who might have to pay for travel, parking, food and additional childcare while simultaneously losing earnings. Its analysis of children born in or after 2008 found that 260,141 had spent at least three weeks in hospital during their childhood. Of those, 34,846 spent more than three months in hospital and 1,342 more than a year.

Where ministers stand

De Souza is also backing an increase in unpaid carer’s leave from five to ten days a year, the introduction of a form of paid carer’s leave and a right for people to return to their jobs after longer periods spent caring.

The government has been consulting on how employment rights could better support unpaid carers and parents of seriously ill children. The consultation, which opened in June and closes on 1 September, sits under the government’s Make Work Pay banner and follows the Employment Rights Act clearing its final parliamentary hurdle at the end of last year.

Kate Dearden, the minister for the future of work, said: “Serious childhood illness is a heartbreaking situation for families. I’ve been incredibly moved by the powerful stories we have heard, and we will move quickly to consider how we can strengthen support and employment rights for families facing serious childhood illness.”

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.

Swedish furniture giant Ikea is cutting prices across a range of popular products in Europe, including the Billy bookcase and Kallax storage units, to woo cash-strapped customers.

Ikea has seen revenue decline over the past two years as the rising cost of living reduces people’s ability to invest in new furniture and home renovations.

The company is spending €1.2bn (£1bn) on the price cuts, which represent reductions of up to 28% on certain products.

Ikea said it could make the cuts by making savings throughout the supply chain, such as packaging costs.

Ingka, the franchisee which operates most of Ikea’s European stores, said the cuts were “not an activity or short-term campaign”.

“It’s about making IKEA more affordable when people need it most, even if it means accepting a lower margin,” said Juvencio Maeztu, chief executive of Ingka. “The cost of living is increasing and it’s getting tougher and tougher for many people.”

He added: “For many people, home is a bedroom in a shared house, and it’s even more important to offer storage and organised solutions.”

Ikea has reduced its prices several times in recent years, even as it caused a hit to the company’s revenue and profit in its most recent earnings report.

The latest specific reductions vary slightly by country. Price cuts for British customers include the Kallax shelving unit going from £60 to £49 and the Billy bookcase being cut by £10 to £25.

Ikea is also trying to attract new customers by opening smaller stores in central areas, such as London’s Oxford Street and Churchill Square in Brighton.

In 2024 it launched its own second-hand online marketplace in a bid to rival sites like eBay and Facebook Marketplace.

Despite a recent uptick, consumer confidence in Europe is at its lowest level for almost three years due to concerns about inflation and the cost of living, according to EU figures. , external

British consumers, meanwhile, are becoming more optimistic about the economy and their own finances, following a truce in the Middle East, but analysts have warned that inflation and the rising cost of living could dent consumer confidence in the coming months.

Ikea operates over 500 stores worldwide under a franchise system.

Many of its minimalist, self-assembled products have become ubiquitous in homes across Europe.

But it has faced criticism from environmentalists for contributing to a culture of disposable furniture and excess packaging.

Bridgend Industrial Park has been acquired

A major industrial park in South Wales is under new ownership.

Manchester-based David Samuel Properties has acquired Bridgend Industrial Park from Zurich Assurance.

The park, close to the M4, provides 300,000 sq ft of warehousing and industrial space with an additional 30 acres of development land. The estate is a mix of large standalone buildings with smaller estates together with ancillary retail and office space.

The park has a strong occupancy rate of 95%.

ACRE London acted on behalf Zurich with the Cardiff investment teams of Fletcher Morgan and Calan acting on behalf David Samuel Properties.

A spokesman for David Samuel Properties said: “This latest acquisition reflects our continued conviction in well-located industrial assets with strong tenant demand, attractive reversionary potential and resilient cashflows.

The value of the deal has not been disclosed.

David Samuel Properties oversees a portfolio of more than 1,200 units at 150 plus locations across the UK.

Moreover, four commercial property projects in North Wales are set to deliver new industrial and employment space with support from the Wales Commercial Property Fund, managed by the Development Bank of Wales.

Developments in Kinmel Bay, Conwy and Bangor have secured almost £7m from the fund, which will support the delivery of almost 67,000 sq ft of modern commercial space across 32 units.

The projects include new light industrial units at Tir Llwyd Enterprise Park in Kinmel Bay, flexible space at Conwy Morfa Enterprise Park, and two separate schemes at Parc Bryn Cegin in Bangor, one of Gwynedd’s strategic employment sites.

Deputy fund manager Claire Sedgwick and property development executive Rob Good supported K&C Group with the funding for Tir Llwyd Enterprise Park while senior property development executive Anna Bowen delivered the funding for Vectorex in Conwy along with Hillcliff Holdings and Lingar Holdings in Bangor.

Nicola Crocker, property fund manager at the Development Bank of Wales, said:“Across North Wales, we are seeing strong demand for modern, flexible commercial space and a pipeline of experienced developers ready to bring forward high-quality schemes.

“These four projects show how targeted funding can help unlock commercial developments that might otherwise struggle to proceed, creating the space businesses need to grow while supporting construction supply chains and strengthening local economies. From Kinmel Bay and Conwy to Bangor, this investment is helping create practical, high-quality employment space in locations where businesses want to operate.

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