A new report lays bare the complexity in evidencing progress against corporate environmental commitments. Nick Hughes reports.
If 2021 will be remembered for food companies making landmark environmental commitments and 2022 was a year for quietly figuring out how to deliver them, 2023 is shaping up to be the year businesses come under pressure to show some real signs of progress.
The scale of the challenge in accurately evidencing delivery against environmental targets, such as net-zero commitments, was underscored earlier this month in a new report by WWF on the impact of UK shopping baskets on climate and nature. It forms part of a long-term partnership between the conservation charity and Tesco aimed at halving the environmental impact of the average basket by 2030. Four other major grocery retailers – M&S, Co-op, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s – have also signed up to the target which requires businesses to take action across their most material impact areas: climate, deforestation, diet, agriculture, marine, food waste and packaging. Four others – Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons, and Ocado – have agreed to contribute data which will be reported annually.
That WWF has persuaded normally fierce competitors to collaborate on a stretching environmental target is commendable. However the first basket report is arguably most notable for the number of gaps in the data supplied by the retailers. This, lest we forget, is a sector that on the whole is more advanced than foodservice in collecting health and sustainability data and reporting on it transparently (sugar and food waste provide two such examples).
Progress against some basket metrics produced comprehensive results: eight out of nine retailers for example shared the percentage of their wild-caught and farmed seafood that is certified sustainable. But elsewhere results were patchy to say the least: just three out of the nine were able to provide a percentage reduction in greenhouse gas emissions across all their scope 3 activities, while fewer than half (four) shared the percentage of protein sales from animal and plant-based sources. There are also challenges with standardisation across a number of metrics – such as scope 3 emissions. Different retailers use different reporting methods creating inconsistencies in the data.
‘Surprising’ gaps
Speaking with Footprint, WWF’s head of food transformation Sarah Wakefield admits that “a lot of people have been surprised” by the number of data gaps but she argues this simply serves to highlight the importance of the initiative which ensures “there is a mirror held up [to] what is actually happening”.
The target to halve the impact of UK shopping baskets by 2030 is certainly eye-catching, albeit fiercely hard to calculate. It is based on WWF’s 2021 global footprint report which assessed the UK’s per capita footprint across six areas critical to the functioning of the planet, such as greenhouse gas emissions, nitrogen and phosphorous use, and materials consumption. Data for the UK footprint was then compared to what is required to stay within planetary limits. The upshot is that the UK must slash its global environmental footprint by 75% by the end of the decade to help put nature on the path to recovery.
The basket report is an attempt to translate the core aspects of the UK global footprint into retailer relevant actions that can actually be measured. The result is seven target areas within each of which are several higher-level outcomes that will need to be achieved by 2030 in order to halve the environmental impact of UK shopping baskets. Some require a percentage reduction, such as reducing food loss and waste in all aspects of the supply chain by 50%; but most are framed in absolute terms like the target to achieve 100% deforestation and conversion-free agricultural commodity supply chains by 2025.
Many are linked to existing targets and initiatives led by organisations such as Wrap, IGD and BRC – “we’re not trying to duplicate that existing work, we’re trying to accelerate it”, says Wakefield. She adds that WWF is also supportive of government proposals to consider requiring mandatory reporting against a set of environmental metrics as part of a food data transparency partnership that was set out in this summer’s food strategy whitepaper.
Clean calculations
It’s not entirely clear from the report how each distinct outcome contributes to the overall target of halving the impact of shopping baskets. Wakefield concedes that “it’s not a clean set of calculations” but insists “it ladders up into the broad target of halving impact [….] and we can stand behind that credibly”. WWF hopes to publish a figure showing progress towards the overall 50% reduction target in next year’s report (this year’s report doesn’t provide one).
Based on the 2022 assessment that 2030 target seems a long way off. Scope 3 emissions have actually increased by 5% since 2018, a result Wakefield says is likely due to increases in market share and sales volumes from the retailers that reported data plus the covid-effect which saw grocery sales across all categories surge in 2020 and 2021. The report notes too that because scope 3 emissions are largely calculated using generic industry-average data any reductions in emissions intensity from retailer-specific supply chains are unlikely to be reflected in the figures.
Sustainable definitions
A focus of work for next year will be in nailing down exact definitions where targets require retailers to ensure products are 100% “sustainably sourced” (as is the case with seafood and packaging materials) or sourced to a “better” standard (as is the case with meat, dairy and eggs).
There is work needed too in encouraging branded suppliers to share better quality supply chain data since much of the current data only accounts for retailer-branded (private label) products.
Civil society-led corporate commitments suffered a reputational blow last month when the Ellen MacArthur Foundation admitted that key targets set within its global plastic commitment are unlikely to be met. But Wakefield says WWF is confident its basket target can be delivered. “We wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t think it was possible but it is very challenging.” And she insists WWF will “absolutely” be willing to challenge and call out retailers if future progress is deemed too slow.
This week WWF warned of “catastrophic consequences” for the planet if a nature-positive deal to save the natural world is not secured at a UN biodiversity conference in Montreal starting next week. COP15 will focus largely on the role governments have to play, but businesses should expect scrutiny of their own actions to ramp up in 2023.
