What are the actual solutions?
Something admittedly lacking from the Bosch data is a sense of any actual solutions. Solutions do always begin with the right understanding on the metrics, because the measurement for corporate sustainability should always guide the management of the challenge.
In a timely manner with Bosch’s numbers, Which? has released its first UK supermarket sustainability rankings. Which gathered data from annual reports and from supermarkets directly in order to compare their sustainability performance.
Which? says that while a huge range of factors can contribute to a supermarket’s overall sustainability record, its research focused on three key areas – plastic waste and food waste, which shoppers have reported are the biggest issues for them; and greenhouse gas emissions, which experts generally agree pose the greatest environmental threat.
On these criteria, Lidl and Waitrose are tied at the top of the Which? sustainability league table, both scoring 74 per cent.
Lidl was rated above its rivals on greenhouse gas emissions and third best for plastic use, boasting 87 per cent of its own-brand plastic as being recyclable. However, Lidl did score poorly on food waste, but the supermarket claimed that its lacklustre performance was due to selling more fresh items than other supermarkets, in relative terms.
The lower end
Others fared less well. M&S scored an underwhelming 48 per cent overall. It was the only supermarket unable to provide its food waste data in a comparable format, so scored zero points for this. Frozen food specialist Iceland came bottom of Which rankings, scoring just 29 per cent.
M&S replied, saying Which? is just one industry benchmark based on certain criteria and its position does not reflect M&S commitment to building a sustainable future. M&S has set a stretching target to be a Net Zero Scope 3 business by 2040 and to support this goal it is taking action by making all food packaging recyclable by the end of next year and cutting plastic food packaging overall by 30 percent by 2027.
Ocado beat the other supermarkets when it came to food waste. It redistributes almost all surplus food, leaving just 0.04 per cent as waste. Aldi, Co-op and Lidl have 24 times as much food waste proportional to their food sales as Ocado and Which? believes that these retailers should be doing more. It’s a vast difference and points to what’s achievable with the right commercial will.
Ocado is also a much newer business. This may speak volumes about how legacy firms struggle to transition in ways newer operators manage better.
Which also notes how differing corporate strategies may contribute to the story; online-only Ocado may have more delivery-related emissions, Iceland’s focus on frozen food may use more energy, and each retailer sells a varying proportion of non-food items.
What comes next with food waste?
Perhaps what’s most telling about all these numbers is that no easy corporate solutions exist. The only element that’s plain is how telling the issues are.
This is largely down to industrialisation of food. Corporate strategies have surrounded packaging up produce and persuading customers to buy in bulk. Single items are relatively rare in supermarkets, the option to purchase a single chicken breast for example, in some shops doesn’t exist.
This by definition encourages waste, and is part of a much wider purchasing and value chain that extends into industrialised food production, another massively damaging and contentious area for corporates.
It’s probably fair to say the entire UK food production, sales and farming sector and value chain requires some fundamental realignment towards more sustainable practice, as clearly all these elements are interlinked. When this may be coming is hard to forecast.
On this note, Matthew Williamson, Partner and National Head of Retail and Leisure at law firm Weightmans, argues that a public scorecard for ESG is going to be really helpful as retail and other industries with significant supply chains target Net Zero.
His sense is that we’re going to see the adoption of more open, transparent ESG standards over coming months and years and as some of the largest companies in the UK, supermarkets are going to set the tone for many others.