Lidl and Waitrose have emerged as the top performers in a supermarket sustainability ranking compiled consumer watchdog Which?
In research was based on data from annual reports and from supermarkets directly in order to compare their sustainability performance, Which? focused on three key areas – plastic waste and food waste, which shoppers have reported are the biggest issues for them; and greenhouse gas emissions. It hopes to encourage supermarkets to make improvements in areas where they may be falling short.
Lidl and Waitrose were tied at the top of Which?’s sustainability league table, both scoring 74%.
Lidl was rated above its rivals on greenhouse gas emissions and third best for plastic use, boasting a massive 87% of its own-label plastic as being recyclable at kerbside. However, Lidl did score poorly on food waste, but the discounter claimed that its lacklustre performance was due to selling more fresh items than other supermarkets, in relative terms.
Waitrose also earned a reasonable score for greenhouse gas emissions and strong results for both plastic and food waste compared to other supermarkets.
Iceland came bottom of Which?’s rankings, scoring only 29%. It did better than some of the other supermarkets on food waste but was unable to report how much of its own-label plastic is recyclable, so scored zero points. However, even a maximum score in this area would still have left it in last place. As a frozen food specialist, it was the worst performer on operational greenhouse gas emissions by some margin due to its in-store freezers needing a lot of energy to run.
M&S scored 48% overall. It was the only supermarket unable to provide its food waste data in a comparable format, so scored zero points for this. M&S also uses a lot of plastic relative to the number of grocery items it sells, and is also in the bottom half of Which?’s table for emissions.
While no supermarket did well across all the categories Which? looked at, there were clear front runners in each category, suggesting there is room for improvement by the other retailers who did poorly in these areas.
Aldi came just after Lidl in the greenhouse gas rankings, but has the best operational emissions intensity (its Scope 1 and 2 emissions relative to its revenue) of all 11 major supermarkets, and has decent targets to reduce them further.
The Co-op was the best supermarket on the overall issue of plastic, as Which? found it has a market-leading 94% of own label plastic packaging recyclable at kerbside.
Ocado beat the other supermarkets when it came to food waste. It redistributes almost all surplus food, leaving just 0.04% as waste. Aldi, Co-op and Lidl have 24 times as much food waste proportional to their food sales as Ocado and Which? stated that these retailers should be doing more.
The watch also believes that supermarkets should eliminate any unnecessary plastic and make sure any plastic used in own-label products is easy to recycle and clearly labelled as such.
“We know that consumers increasingly want to shop sustainably and our in-depth analysis of three key areas shows that all the big supermarkets could be looking to make some improvements,” said Harry Rose, Editor at Which?
“The good news is shoppers can make a big difference themselves by adopting more sustainable habits, such as buying loose fruit and vegetables, buying seasonal local produce, eating less meat and dairy and limiting their own food waste.”
Which?’s sustainability ranking
- Lidl – 74%
- Waitrose – 74%
- Asda – 71%
- Sainsbury’s – 71%
- Tesco – 69%
- Morrisons – 68%
- Aldi – 66%
- Co-op – 65%
- Ocado – 63%
- Marks & Spencer – 48%
- Iceland – 29%
