How sustainable is your supermarket?

It seems we all expect our supermarkets to lead the way in helping us to make more sustainable choices.  We all want a ‘sustainable supermarket’.  How do you feel yours is doing? 

It’s definitely true that the easier it is for the general public to get hold of low packaging and sustainable products, the more of us will make this essential shift.

So how do you know whether your supermarket is the right one for you on your journey to sustainability?  We can look on the shelves at how much of their products are plastic free, but what about their supply and production lines?  How is our store powered, and are they working towards goals that I care about? This is not easy to see from inside your supermarket…  

Luckily, companies like these are expected to tell us what they are up to as a form of Corporate Responsibility reporting, so, being the nerd that I am, I’ve had a read of these reports, and a couple of other independent sources assessments, summarised the key points and come up with a ranking so that you don’t have to.  You’re welcome!

The supermarkets vary in the quality of their reports.  Around half have a full report you can download, others have a series of webpages containing stats and information which has made a direct comparison pretty hard.

In terms of reports, Morrisons felt very transparent, with previous years numbers displayed so we can see progress and breakdowns of some of the numbers into details. 

Unfortunately, Asda’s website was misbehaving, and only the headlines were visible as all the reports and details pages were displaying errors.  They’ve shown up low scored because of this.  I’ll try to update this report once they’re up and running.

Sainsbury's have announced a net zero by 2040 plan.  This involves reducing net greenhouse gas emissions from their operations to net zero, becoming water neutral in their own operations, reducing plastic packaging use by 50% by 2025, and reducing food waste by 50% by 2030.  Pretty ambitious compared to the rest who are planning to take until 2050 to get to the same place.

Waitrose wants to be ‘the most ethical and sustainable retailer in the UK’. 

At Asda, the approach to sustainability is ‘based on the belief that protecting the environment and saving people money go hand in hand’.

Morrisions wants to be ‘a leading corporate in the fight to keep plastic in the economy and out of the environment, and to help more and more customers live their lives with less reliance on plastic’.

Lidl have an overarching sustainability strategy to ‘make good food accessible to everyone’, our vision is to ensure that our food and all our products are produced, sold and consumed in ways that benefits producers, people and the planet.

Aldi say ‘it’s about making sure that what you buy has been grown, caught or made with ultimate care for the environment and that workers are treated fairly. It’s also about our incredible suppliers, being fairer to farmers, raising money for great causes, inspiring kids to eat fresh, sourcing sustainable foods and reducing waste’.

Tesco are ‘focused on tackling the global climate change threat, protecting important ecosystems such as forests and marine environments and advocating for sustainable agricultural practices that protect soil health and biodiversity’.

I could make you read the whole article to get the answer, but I won’t.  I know you’re short on time…

So here’s how the supermarkets stack up in terms of sustainability (5 means best of the bunch, not perfect)…

I was quite surprised that Tesco’s was the most sustainable supermarket, but they have a reasonable level of green energy supply, they have their ‘perfectly imperfect’ range to reduce food waste, the Uk are on track to reach net zero for carbon by 2035 (which is way ahead of the others), and are building the largest retail electric vehicle charging network in the UK.  All of their own brand products use RSPO certified palm oil and 93% of paper/wood products are FSC certified.   Their main downfall is around plastic packaging, which Greenpeace’s report did not score them well on, and fish sustainability.  We can control these ourselves by only purchasing MSC certified fish products from them and choosing low packaging fruit and veg or branded alternatives.

Note – Asda’s figure is low because I couldn’t get access to the right data.  I’ll keep checking the website and when it’s back up again I’ll update…

I’m going to dig into the detail now to back these figures up, read on to find out more about what your supermarket is up to and consider whether to switch!

To read the rest of the article and check out what your supermarket is doing, head to the blog post here... www.eatthinkexplore.com/sustainable-supermarket


Thanks for reading