UK Retailers on Track to Hit Environmental Targets

01 Mar 2016 --- Britain’s retailers are on target to meet voluntary targets to cut the environmental impact of their operations, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

The BRC has released an updated progress report on its ‘A Better Retailing Climate (ABRC)’ initiative, detailing how its members, which include Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Boots are performing on meeting targets which spans energy and water use, and waste.

Some of the achievements to date by ABRC’s participating retailers include
• Cutting in-store carbon emissions by 35 percent relative to growth, as well as working with suppliers to cut carbon emissions across their supply chains by sharing best practice via information exchange mechanisms
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions arising from refrigeration by 50 percent.
• Increasing the measurement of water usage to 91 percent and working with farms and factories to develop more sustainable water management practices throughout their supply chains. 
• Ensuring that 91 percent of their palm oil is sustainability sourced.
• Working with farmers and producer groups to reduce food waste and losses in agriculture by reviewing current product specifications and introducing ‘smarter’ ways to forecast.

BRC director of food and sustainability Andrew Opie said: “A Better Retailing Climate clearly demonstrates that creating and maintaining sustainable supply chains is at the heart of retail businesses. 

“We fully appreciate the positive role we can play with suppliers and consumers in meeting head on challenges of climate change and resource efficiency. We are confident that we will meet by the year 2020, the ambitious voluntary targets we’ve set for ourselves.”

The ABRC initiative set a range of targets in 2014 to be achieved by 2020, such as reducing carbon emissions from store deliveries by 50 percent by 2020.

The BRC said it was set to meet its targets, despite a challenging economic backdrop, which includes changing shopping habits and commodity price fluctuations.