Iceland Foods has announced its commitment to becoming the first supermarket in the UK to offset its entire remaining plastic footprint.
The move means recovering and recycling environmental and nature-bound waste plastic equal in weight to the supermarket’s residual plastic footprint. Iceland stressed that it remains committed to eliminating plastic from its own-label range entirely.
Iceland will partner with Seven Clean Seas who are designing a global programme for the supermarket to achieve plastic neutral status by funding and establishing the recovery and, where possible, recycling of environmental and nature-bound mixed waste plastic. This will take place via community and municipal collections, and environmental interception. The projects will focus on developing countries with the highest waste leakage, in order to create exponential impact.
Iceland’s Managing Director Richard Walker is calling for a standardised system and certification for nature-bound plastic recovery and offsetting that ensures the integrity of the approach.
“We all know that, in the long term, the industry cannot recycle or offset its way out of the plastic crisis and, while we remain firmly fixed on plastic reduction, this is another important milestone in our journey to becoming plastic-free,” he said.
“I would ask our other supermarkets to urgently consider becoming plastic neutral as they too look to turn down the tap on plastic production altogether.”
Three years ago, Iceland set a target to eliminate plastic packaging from all of its own-label products by the end of 2023.
Walker admitted today that the group may not achieve the 2023 target due to setbacks caused by the pandemic, when plastic use increased, and lack of commercially viable innovation.
“We remain focused on our target and will not stop until we have delivered what we set out to,” he added.
