Standing admiring the 30,000 “integrated” wind-turbine-to-be on the corner of the forthcoming B&Q eco-store in New Malden, it was hard not to reflect on the way that things have gone with store design and the green agenda.

Speak to almost any retailer of substance and they will tell you that they have in fact been on the green trail for, on average, between four and five years. And the reason, not so long ago, was the ostensibly straightforward one that it was the right thing to do, whatever that meant. However, the ground has shifted and retail stakeholders’ gaze has headed inexorably towards the bottom line.

Today, the green store has to contain at least the glimmer of a possibility that it might pay for itself, or even that it might be a net profit contributor. It won’t, of course, at least not in the near future. Ask the payback question and things become a little hazy, with “eight to 10 years” being the typical answer, depending on whether you ask about heat pumps, ventilation systems or maybe, and least likely to prove economical, solar panel energy generation.

The point about all of this is that retailers are now fighting the green battle on two fronts. There is still a strong requirement for them to be eco-friendly, but with cash in very short supply, financial accountability is paramount.

A B&Q director claims that the build cost of the New Malden store will be about double that of one of the retailer’s conventional sheds but, because it has been built over several levels, substantial savings have been made on the cost of the site itself. It will also cut by half the amount of CO2 it emits when compared with a similarly sized branch.

So does this mean a leaner, meaner, greener retail future? Well possibly. But it also means a fine line is being trod between sustainable buildings and those that stack up with the finance director. Owing to the cost of these kind of structures, we are probably looking at stores that will be the product of engineering departments rather than design consultancies. Not a bad thing possibly, but it does posit a medium term with some worthy, but dull large-footprint stores.

To its credit, B&Q appears to have combined design and engineering with a “super shopfront” (for which read large glass wall) and some nifty-looking architectural features. You have to hope that this is the route that retailers will take, rather than following the strictly utilitarian path.