The CEOs of five major UK supermarkets have committed to slash their impact across climate, deforestation and nature.
Working with WWF, Coop, Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose will halve the environmental impact of their UK shopping baskets by 2030. Work will span climate, deforestation and conversion of habitat, agricultural production, marine, diets, food waste and packaging.
The major retailers, who have called on others to join the scheme, will supply data annually to WWF and report publicly on the actions they are taking.
The data will feed into WWF’s annual assessment to track the food retail sector’s overall progress, including alignment with government ambitions to end deforestation and ecosystem destruction in key UK supply chains.
At COP26 this week, the UK announced funding of £500m to support the implementation of the Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT) Roadmap. FACT, co-chaired by the UK and Indonesia, brings together 28 of the largest consumer and producer governments of beef, soy, cocoa and palm oil.
WWF’s Retailers’ Commitment for Nature builds on work started by WWF and Tesco to reduce the environmental impacts of food production across key areas.
Food systems are responsible for 60% of global nature loss and contribute 31% of greenhouse gas emissions.
