Tesco partners with WWF to track foods’ environmental impact

The supermarket giant will work with the not-for-profit organisation on what it has dubbed a “ground-breaking” Sustainable Basket Metric.

The tool will assess the environmental impact of staple grocery products such as bread, milk, bananas, salad tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, free-range eggs, salmon fillets, steak mince and canned tuna chunks.

Foods will be tracked against seven key criteria: climate change, deforestation, sustainable diets, sustainable agriculture, marine sustainability, food waste and packaging waste.

Tesco and WWF will run its first full assessment using the metric early next year and publish the results publicly.

The grocer said it would use those findings to firm up a target date by which to halve the impact of the average UK shopping basket. Tesco said its “potential ambition” would be to achieve that aim by 2030.

Tesco has already tied up with WWF on a number of other sustainability projects, including soil health and water usage programmes in UK agriculture. The duo are also working towards the production of zero-deforestation commodities such as soy in Tesco’s supply chains.

Tesco boss Dave Lewis, who will discuss the issue of sustainability at Retail Week Live in March 2020, said: “At Tesco, we want to provide customers with good quality, affordable food that is produced in a sustainable way. To help us achieve this we’ve partnered with WWF with the goal of halving the environmental impact of the average UK shopping basket.

“Throughout our partnership, we’ll be carrying out industry-leading work to make food production more sustainable, including sourcing commodities like soy and palm oil from verified zero-deforestation areas, and improving soil health and water usage on farms in the UK.

“Working together we can help to ensure the natural environment is protected for future generations.”

WWF chief executive Tanya Steele added: “Food production is at the core of many of the environmental crises facing our planet – it’s the leading cause of tropical deforestation and is responsible for 24% of the world’s greenhouse gases.

“The launch of the Sustainable Basket Metric will enable Tesco to fully understand the end-to-end sustainability impact of some of the most popular foods, and we’re proud to have worked with them to create it.

“We want other retailers to take a similar approach and come together to ensure a more sustainable approach to food production.”