Sustainable Procurement News

It’s getting easier to make sustainable seafood choices, thanks to co-operation between Canadian retailers and Seafood Progress, an online reporting program run by SeaChoice. For its second year of assessments, Seafood Progress noted scores for transparency and accountability improved for many of Canada’s largest food retailers. METRO, Loblaw and Save-On Foods received the highest overall scores, with METRO showing the greatest year-to-year improvement.

Lidl Ireland has announced plans to launch reusable bags for fruit and vegetables in all its 162 outlets across the country in September. The 'Green Bags', priced at 99c a pair, will offer customers a sustainable alternative to single-use plastic bags for purchasing fruit and vegetables, the retailer said.

Leading retailers have cut their carbon emissions by a third since 2005, according to a new report from the British Retail Consortium. Almost 30 retailers have signed up to the Better Retail Better World initiative, including Morrisons, John Lewis, B&Q parent company Kingfisher, Sainsbury’s, Missguided and New Look. The initiative said retailers are now meeting their carbon emissions targets two years early, using the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a framework, which is said to focus on “clear, transparent and measurable goals for businesses”.

British retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) has this season seen its entire clothing range made from 100% sustainable cotton - one of the first retailers to reach this milestone. Key to its achievement is the Better Cotton Initiative, the largest sustainable cotton programme in the world, according to Phil Townsend, technical lead, environmental sustainability and technical services at M&S. He also believes the transformation of the cotton sector should be a blueprint for other raw material initiatives. 

The US-based retail giant, Walmart, has decreased its scope one and two emissions by 6.1% in 2017 in comparison to 2015 as the company gears up to reduce its emissions by 1bn metric tons by 2030, according to Supply Chain Dive.

Walmart is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to providing logistical support for China operations. As previously reported by Reuters, Walmart plans to increase investment in its supply chain logistics in China by about $1.2 billion. The discount giant will build or upgrade more than 10 logistics distribution centers in China over the next 10-20 years.

Homeware conglomerate IKEA has announced its ambition to replace all virgin polyester textiles products with recycled polyester by 2020. This comes as the firm has embarked on a mission to utilise only renewable or recycled materials by 2030, notably in its 2018 financial report it highlighted that 100 per cent of the cotton it sourced during the 12 months was certified as ‘sustainable’ for a second year running.

The luxury retailer also aims to cut emissions from its extended supply chain, including sourcing of raw materials and manufacturing of finished goods, by 30% by 2030 – the first time it has set such a target.

Sustainability has been found to be a core factor for EU retailers when it comes to product sourcing, according to findings in a new study by the International Trade Centre. related to Retail, Social & environmental responsibility, Sourcing,

Morrisons is to become the first supermarket chain to remove packaging from its fruit and vegetables. The company said customers would be able to choose from up to 127 varieties of fruit and veg in many of its stores, buying them loose or putting them in recyclable paper bags.

Walmart Inc. recently issued its inaugural Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report, which details the company’s goals, progress and achievements for fiscal year 2019 toward its commitment to increase economic opportunity for associates and local communities, build sustainability in supply chains and activate climate change initiatives.

A report from the UK organization Earthsight finds that UK supermarket chains — including Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Lidl — are still importing corned beef from Brazil’s largest beef producer, JBS, despite the company being implicated in a long string of corruption and illegal deforestation scandals over the last decade.

UK retailer Sainbury's is replacing black plastic used in chilled ready meal trays with natural CPET, a form of recyclable plastic. The new material will be incorporated in the packaging of all chilled ready meals by November of this year, the retailer said.

Retail major Spar has launched an organic bioplastic toothbrush in Austria under its private label Beauty Kiss.
Launched at the end of July and sold under the retailer’s own brand Beauty Kiss, the organic toothbrush is made from 90% bio-based plastics and manufactured in a resource-saving manner, Spar Austria said. The packaging is also made from vegetable-based, renewable materials.

The European online retailer says its current ‘sustainable’ fashion assortment already consists of more than 15,000 items, from over 240 different brands, and reports that its decision to flag up items that are either certified to environmental standards or made from environmentally preferential raw materials has proved to be a success.

Spanish clothing giant Inditex, the world's largest clothing retailer, has outlined a series of new sustainability commitments - including a pledge that 100% of the cotton, linen and polyester used by all eight of its brands will be organic, sustainable or recycled by 2025. 

The Food Marketing Institute (FMI), a Washington DC-based trade group for food marketing, food retailers, and wholesalers has had its finger on the pulse of the technological and strategic trends that are reshaping the ways in which food makes its way from farm to shelf since 1976. Last week, the FMI’s Senior Vice President of Industry Relations, Mark Baum, published his list of the food retail supply chain trends that are defining the industry today. Supply Chain Digital has broken down three of the core trends identified by the report. 

1) Information is Power

2) The On-Demand supply chain

3) Data, Data and more Data 

Japanese retail giant Fast Retailing is to eliminate the use of unnecessary plastic throughout its supply chain and reduce up to 85% of the amount of single-use plastic packaging at group stores by the end of 2020. 

The UK’s largest supermarkets are falling short on ensuring workers and small-scale farmers in their global supply chains are protected and fairly rewarded, according to Oxfam.

Target, the eighth largest retailer in the United States according to Stores, the magazine of the country’s National Retail Federation, announced this week that it was committing to source 100% of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030, a goal which will apply to all of the company’s domestic operations, including stores, distribution centers, and offices.

Luxury fashion retailer Ralph Lauren has revealed ‘Design the Change’, a new set of global citizenship and sustainability strategy and goals which it hopes will “bring clarity and focus to how Ralph Lauren will deliver the change required to create a better future.” The pledges include 100 per cent transparency of chemicals used during production by 2020, eliminating the use of hazardous chemicals in its supply chain by 2025 and 100 per cent of its key materials – such as cotton, polyester and viscose – being ‘sustainably’ sourced by 2025. It also notes plans to use 170 million recycled plastic bottles in both its products and packaging by 2025.

The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) has raised concerns with both supermarkets about the accreditation of labour-hire providers in their domestic supply chains. ACCR director of workers' rights, Katie Hepworth, said there were concerns the supermarkets were continuing trade with labour hire providers found to have violated Fair Work laws. Under Woolworths' policies, a labour-hire provider must be accredited through one of three systems: the state licensing system for labour hire; be considered an approved employer on the Australian Government's Seasonal Worker Programme; or be accredited by the certification scheme, StaffSure.

Supermarket giant Tesco has published its annual food waste figures, revealing that it wasted 17% less food by weight during 2018-19 than during the previous 12-month period.