BRC: Retailers cutting carbon emissions by tens of thousands of tonnes

Friday, 21 October 2022 10:16

British businesses have the opportunity to lead the world on decarbonisation, according to comments by Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Kerry McCarthy MP. Speaking at the BRC’s Climate Action Roadmap Showcase last night, where six retailers were recognised for their work in taking on the challenges of carbon reduction head on. The Showcase recognises some of the best recent retail sustainability initiatives, showing how the industry is delivering on McCarthy’s...Request free trial

The Showcase recognises some of the best recent retail sustainability initiatives, showing how the industry is delivering on McCarthy’s challenge. Winning entrants spanned the breadth of the industry, from supermarket giants to smaller brands. These initiatives, along with many other case studies submitted to the Showcase, have helped to reduce carbon emissions by tens of thousands of tonnes since 2020.

Showcase submissions covered five major areas of carbon emission reduction: in supply chains, in transport and logistics, in properties, reducing waste, and changing consumer behaviour. They were judged by experts including those from WWF, WRAP and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

The winning entries were picked for their ambition and impact. Currys ‘Long Live Your Tech’ (Changing Consumer Behaviour) resulted in 1.7 million items being brought in for repair, and away from landfill. Tesco’s partnership with food-sharing social enterprise, OLIO, has helped redistribute 4,500 tonnes of unsold food (Reducing Waste). And Asda’s new biogas trucks have helped remove 50,000 tonnes of CO₂e from operations (Reducing emissions in transport and logistics).

Retailers have been taking innovative and bold steps, looking right through parts of their operations and supply chain. Other winning entries were Radley, who took a fresh look at their entire operations, from tanning the leather, to cutting it, to packaging it, in order to reduce waste. Morrisons, who worked with their farmers to find ways of lowering emissions in the production of beef, pork, lamb and eggs (Tackling Carbon Emissions in the Supply Chain). And Screwfix, who almost halved the carbon intensity of hundreds of stores through installing heat pumps, insulation and LED lighting (Driving towards net zero properties).

The Showcase is taking place during the BRC’s Climate Action Week, which aims to promote and support the Climate Action Roadmap, a pledge by over 80 major retailers to get the industry and its supply chains to Net Zero by 2040. This will be an important part of the wider goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5^oC above pre-industrial levels.

Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive at the BRC, said:

“The Showcase has given us greater insight into the amazing work being done by the retail industry to cut carbon emissions. But, we still have a long way to go. The Climate Action Roadmap brings together the entire industry, fostering and sharing best practice for the benefit of everyone.

“While I wish to congratulate all our winning entries, this is only the beginning of what is needed. With retail responsible for 30% of all household greenhouse gas emissions, the responsibility on the industry, and our opportunity to make a difference are enormous. Unless we act quickly and decisively, the climate crisis will not be averted.”

Kerry McCarthy MP, Labour's Shadow Minister for Climate Change, said:

“British businesses and industries have the opportunity to lead the world on decarbonisation and benefit from the low-cost green technologies of the future. The British Retail Consortium's Climate Action Roadmap is a great example of ambitious climate leadership and I hope it will inspire other industries to create and follow their own carbon reduction roadmaps.

“Labour will work closely with businesses to reduce their emissions, lower their bills and support them to adopt new green technologies."

Summary of winning entries (links provide greater detail on each initiative)

Retailer	Summary of initiative
Tackling carbon emissions in the supply chain
Morrisons	Morrisons went right down to the farm level with a plan to be the first supermarket to be directly supplied by net zero carbon British farms by 2030. They have worked with farmers to create blueprints to reduce emissions through rearing different animal breeds, improving the way livestock is managed, using low food-mile feedstuffs and harnessing renewables.
Reducing emission in transport and logistics
Asda	Asda has taken huge strides towards reducing their transport emissions through the use of biogas. The challenges of the pandemic even forced them to build six temporary Light Natural Gas stations to their operations as they bid to build the largest alternative fuelled fleet.
Reducing Waste (joint winners)
Radley	Radley has been improving its production processes to ensure that they eliminate waste as far as possible and plan collections to minimise waste from leather cuttings. For their non-leather range this company used materials made from recycled plastic bottles which could otherwise have gone to landfill. It is also looking at improving packaging which is currently made from 75% recycled and responsible sources and committed that by 2023 they will increase to 90% recycled or recyclable.
Tesco	Tesco’s partnership with food sharing social enterprise OLIO has helped them to redistribute 4,500 tonnes of unsold food in parts of the UK where they were previously unable to find a partner through their existing networks. Furthermore, the company is aiming for all its own label packaging to be fully reusable or recyclable by 2023 and branded packaging to hit the same goal by 2025. They have so far removed 1.6 billion pieces of plastics with commitments to remove 5 billion more.
Driving towards net zero properties
Screwfix	Screwfix invested £20 million into energy savings and carbon reduction projects in their buildings, including LED lighting, building management, insulation and heating improvements. At the heart of this was a huge investment in air source heat pumps across 300 of their stores which is contributing to a massive saving of 3,800 tonnes of carbon a year.
Changing Consumer behaviour
Currys	Currys focused on giving technology a longer life. In 2021 they launched a Long Live Your Tech initiative, which extends the life of tech through services such as repairing, rehoming, recycling and reusing. As a result, consumers have brought in over 1.7 million items for repair, 103 thousand items for recycling, and allowed over 3 million parts to be harvested for future use.

Summary of Commended Entries:

Retailer	Summary of initiative
Tackling carbon emissions in the supply chain
Simba Sleep	For making their organic mattress entirely recyclable or biodegradable
Reducing emission in transport and logistics
Tesco	For their introduction of 200 new electric vans
Driving towards net zero properties
McDonald’s	For their pilot zero-carbon store

-ENDS-

Judges were:

Nick Beighton, Ex-CEO of ASOS, and newly appointed CEO of MatchesFashion;
Marcus Gover, Outgoing Chief Executive Officer of WRAP
Lindsay Hooper, Executive Director of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership;
Kate Norgrove, Executive Director of Advocacy and Campaigns at the WWF;
Luke Tugby, Editor at Retail Week.

All submissions can be found here: https://brc.org.uk/climate-roadmap/climate-action-roadmap-showcase/