The British Retail Consortium has warned retailers to take urgent action on accelerating nature and biodiversity loss or “risk jeopardising supply chain resilience”.
The warnings come in the BRC’s new ‘Planning for Nature’ report, which found that 76% of retailers have no targets on protecting nature and biodiversity.
Half of retailers (52%) are also yet to make any public comments on nature, while two-thirds (67%) lack a data-led strategy to address biodiversity loss as a result of their businesses and supply chains.
The BRC said this was due to issues such as budget constraints, lack of data gathering, and not ensuring that suppliers are also taking action.
However, despite the challenges facing the retail sector, the BRC said that 29% of retailers are at least developing public commitments, while 24% are beginning to engage with suppliers on diversity loss and a further 29% are working out a “nature strategy”.
A quarter of respondents to the BRC survey for the report also said they would make “nature a top business priority” for the year ahead.
The BRC has said it will use its new annual report to “track progress and hold retailers to account” on nature and biodiversity loss and will work with the sector to focus on “creating workable nature policies, establishing standardised metrics, improving supplier engagement, and building the business case for nature”.
BRC director of food and sustainability Andrew Opie said: “Despite the huge costs and pressures in supply chains, it is imperative that we maintain progress to protect and restore our environment.
“It is great to see such a number and variety of UK retailers stepping up to their responsibilities, working with their suppliers to make practical changes to reduce our impact on the environment, all the while maintaining affordability and choice for customers. We look forward to seeing the government’s revised Environment Improvement Plans and working closely with them and retailers to make further progress in this critical area.”
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