With sustainability becoming more important to consumers, retailers across the board have started making bold statements and setting out ambitious goals – but are they real or just for show? Retail Week investigates.

  • Retail Week compares the progress of 14 retailers against their own sustainability targets 
  • Greenwashing is rife within retail, says Accenture’s Lynda Petherick, with too many businesses taking only partial steps towards sustainability
  • Greater benchmarking and better guidance on labelling is needed across the industry, say campaigners 

From net-zero carbon to ethically sourced cotton, sustainability targets have become ubiquitous across retail and the global pandemic has only accelerated consumer expectations.

Shoppers are becoming more aware of their purchasing habits and where the products they buy come from. Some 49% of UK consumers said they were planning to make more environmentally friendly, sustainable or ethical purchases over Christmas, according to the latest research from Accenture.

But while there is now more scrutiny on retailers’ environmental practices, it can be difficult to differentiate between genuine corporate responsibility and those jumping on the bandwagon.

M&S plan A

Marks & Spencer has launched Plan A to push its sustainability goals

‘Greenwashing’ – a marketing ploy whereby businesses present themselves as more climate-friendly than they really are – is rife in retail, says Accenture head of retail Lynda Petherick. 

A raft of sustainable targets have been set by retailers over the past few years on materials such as cotton, wood and paper, as well as the energy resources used in offices, stores and distribution centres.

Greenwashing arises when retailers set unrealistic targets, publicise misleading claims or limit the scope of their goals to certain elements of the business – ultimately allowing the rest of the company to continue to operate in a way that is detrimental to the environment and plastering over concerns.

“What’s important is that retailers don’t look for quick fixes and instead ensure their business models are reflective of the initiative they’re promoting”

Lynda Petherick, Accenture

“What’s important is that retailers don’t look for quick fixes and instead ensure their business models are reflective of the initiative they’re promoting,” explains Petherick. 

“Let’s take the fashion industry, for example. Organic cotton seems to be the latest retail marketing buzzword since its environmental benefits have become more well-known among consumers. 

“However, there are some products being advertised as made from organic cotton – and indeed they may well be – but a retailer’s overall business model still might not align with sustainable consumption.”

In 2019, for example, Boohoo’s #ForTheFuture recycled-clothing capsule collection of just 34 items received backlash, given that the retailer ordinarily adds around 100 new items to its site every single day.

Boohoo Fit For The Future range

Boohoo’s #ForTheFuture capsule collection received backlash

The collection itself, which claimed to help shoppers “dress well and do your bit for the planet”, was made largely of polyester and, with prices starting at £4, still contributed to the single-use nature of Boohoo’s ranges.

However, former Marks & Spencer sustainability director Mike Barry, now a sustainability consultant, does believe the retail industry is taking this seriously.

“It’s complicated, mistakes get made and businesses overclaim – but the problem is some businesses do not realise how much they have to change”

Mike Barry, sustainability consultant

“As businesses do more in this space there is the risk – I don’t think maliciously– that they do it wrong and it comes across as greenwash,” he says.

“Not to be naive – there is a little bit of bullshit out there – but generally this is lots of businesses waking up to the fact that they need to do more. 

“It’s complicated, mistakes get made and I think businesses sometimes overclaim – but the problem is some businesses do not realise how much they have to change.”

Is retail doing as it says?

Retail Week has researched the sustainability pledges that retailers have made and their progress against these targets. Pleasingly, most retailers are making notable headway in achieving their aims.

In fact, in some areas retailers are actually exceeding their targets. Tesco, for example, has achieved 68% renewable energy, above its 65% by 2020 target and on track to reach 100% by 2030.

Plastic bag levy

Plastic packaging remains a problem for many retailers  

However, there are some areas where retailers are struggling. In grocery, plastic packaging and recycling are prominent environmental targets. 

Marks & Spencer is seeking to have 100% recyclable packaging by 2022, with figures currently reported at 77%, while Tesco has achieved 83%.

Sainsbury’s, the Co-op and Aldi, meanwhile, are far more vague about their achievements so far, with Sainsbury’s even blaming the pandemic for a lack of progress.

Cotton has been high on fashion retailers’ agendas, although there is some discrepancy about what ‘organic’ and ‘sustainable’ cotton actually means.

H&M had almost reached its target of 100% sustainable or recycled cotton by 2020 when reporting in 2019, but it has not updated since. 

Meanwhile, John Lewis Partnership has some way to go to hit its target. It aimed to achieve 50% sustainable cotton for the John Lewis fascia by January 2021 and 100% for Waitrose in the same timeframe. 

As things stand, John Lewis has 36% sustainable cotton, while Waitrose has just 23%.

RetailerEnvironmental targets/goalsAchievements to date

Marks & Spencer

  • Halve UK food waste by 2030
  • 100% organic cotton in 2019
  • All M&S products to have at least one socially or environmentally helpful ‘Plan A’ quality by 2020
  • 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030; 90% by 2035; both from 2006/7 baseline
  • Reduce refrigeration emissions by 80% by 2025
  • 100% recyclable plastic packaging by 2022 
  • Food surplus distributed up 88% year on year; working to improve accuracy of food waste measurement
  • 100% organic cotton achieved
  • All products have ‘Plan A’ qualities
  • Emissions 47% reduced from 2006/7
  • Refrigeration emissions reduced by 72%, but several leakages reported
  • 77% recyclable plastic packaging

Ted Baker

  • 100% sustainable cotton by 2024 (from 2017)
  • 100% leather from Leather Working Group, a non-profit members’ organisation that certifies sustainable tanneries, by 2025
  • Net-zero carbon – no year specified
  • 100% renewable energy in UK stores and Ugly Brown Building head office
  • 12% of full collection is sustainable; 52% sustainable cotton (up from 30% last year)
  • 26% leather from Leather Working Group
  • Joined the British Retail Consortium (BRC) Climate Action Roadmap; founding signatory of WRAP Textiles 2030; diverted 38 tonnes of unsold stock to charity rather than landfill (up from 20 tonnes last year)
  • 100% renewable energy in UK stores and Ugly Brown Building head office

Iceland

  • Remove plastic from own-label packaging by 2023
  • Remove palm oil from all own-brand products by 2018
  • Plastic packaging reduced by 29% since 2018; trialled reverse vending machine
  • Palm oil pledge caused controversy after products with palm oil were still sold in stores in January 2019

John Lewis

  • 100% waste diverted from landfill by January 2021
  • All own-brand packaging recyclable or reusable by 2023
  • Net-zero carbon by 2050
  • 100% renewable electricity by 2028
  • John Lewis to have 50% sustainable cotton by January 2021; Waitrose to have 100% sustainable cotton by January 2021
  • 99.7% waste diverted
  • John Lewis has 67% recyclable packaging; Waitrose has 86.5% recyclable packaging
  • Carbon emissions down 6.6% since 2018
  • 97.3% renewable electricity (down from 97.8% in 2018)
  • John Lewis has 36% sustainable cotton; Waitrose has 23% sustainable cotton

Tesco

  • Zero carbon in the UK by 2035; whole group by 2050
  • 65% renewable energy by 2020 and 100% renewable energy by 2030; 100% renewable energy in central Europe by 2021
  • Electric vehicles by 2028
  • Remove hard-to-recycle plastic from products by end of 2018
  • Carbon emissions reduced by 37%
  • 68% renewable energy achieved and has begun fitting solar panels to stores
  • Removed hard-to-recycle black plastic from products; 83% recyclable packaging (no target set)
  • Rolled out electric vehicles in London

Sainsbury’s

  • Net-zero carbon by 2040
  • Stores 100% lit by LED lights by 2022
  • Reduce plastic packaging by 50% by 2025
  • Reduce food waste by 50% by 2030
  • Water-neutral by 2040
  • Carbon emissions down 14.2% year on year, 4% ahead of target
  • “On track” to put LED lighting in stores
  • ”Pandemic caused delays to plastic packaging reduction”; removed packaging for some vegetable items; has the same number of recycling stations year on year (closed some during pandemic)
  • Food waste reduced by 23.1% this year as cafes and counters were closed
  • Moved to self-supply of water; “on track to meet targets”

Aldi

  • Reduce plastic packaging by 50% by 2025
  • 100% renewable energy
  • LED lighting in all stores
  • Introduced measures such as removing single-use plastic bags for fruit and veg and removing shrinkwrap on multipacks; plastic reduction a condition for suppliers to work with Aldi
  • 100% renewable energy since 2015
  • LED lighting in all stores

Co-op

  • Reduce emissions from operations by 50% by 2025; reduce emissions from products by 11% by 2025
  • Net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050
  • 100% own-brand packaging recyclable by end of 2021; 50% recycled plastic in food packaging by end of 2021
  • Emissions from operations down 39% in 2019; emissions from products down 2.5% in 2019
  • Founding partner of Count Us In initiative to get 1 billion people worldwide to make a climate pledge by 2030
  • Rolling out scheme to recycle plastic film; switched to compostable bags  

Superdrug

  • 85% of waste recycled by 2020
  • 90% recyclable packaging by 2021
  • Remove microplastics from own-brand products by 2019
  • Reduce overall energy consumption by 50% by 2021
  • Superdrug declined to comment on what they had achieved against their targets

Boohoo

  • Plans to introduce sustainability plan for Q1 2021 – no real commitments other than “we must do more”
  • Introduced #ForTheFuture range in 2019; partnered with reGAIN in 2018 to begin recycling garments and divert them from landfill

Boots

  • Vague commitments to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions and to reduce waste, increase recycling and negate negative impacts of plastic in own-brand products
  • No7 brand to have 100% recyclable packaging by 2025
  • Launched make-up recycling scheme in September 2020, which has recycled more than 100,000 empties
  • Signed plastic pact to revolutionise plastic packaging by 2025; switched plastic bags for paper in 2018

Kingfisher

  • 50% of group sales to come from products that make greener homes by the end of 2020/21
  • ‘Net positive’ business by 2050
  • 22% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025
  • Create more forests than they use by 2025
  • Source 100% sustainable wood and paper for products and catalogues by 2020/21
  • Zero waste to landfill by 2020
  • 90% of waste recycled by 2025
  • 37% of group sales come from products that make greener homes as of January 2020
  • Generates own green energy and sources 42% of purchased electricity from renewable sources to reduce carbon from operations; operates 12 net-zero-energy Screwfix stores
  • 18% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions since 2016/17
  • Will begin investing in forestation next year
  • 94% of wood and paper is from proven, well-managed forests or recycled sources; 100% of catalogue paper meets responsible sourcing criteria
  • 82% of waste diverted from landfill in 2019/20
  • 67% of waste recycled in 2019/20

H&M

  • 100% sustainable or recycled cotton by 2020; all materials sustainably sourced or recycled by 2030
  • Climate-positive value chain by 2040
  • 100% renewable energy in operations by 2030
  • 25,000 tonnes of garments collected by recycling scheme by 2020
  • 97% of cotton sustainable or recycled by 2019; “taking steps towards all materials by 2030”
  • Frst retailer to publish supplier list in 2013; collaborating with innovators to recycle textiles; more than 250 people working specifically on sustainability across the group
  • 96% renewable energy in operation in 2019
  • 29,005 tonnes of garments collected in 2019

Ikea

  • Circular business and climate-positive by 2030
  • 100% of wood and paper sustainable by 2020
  • Become forest- and water-positive
  • Launched ‘buy-back’ scheme
  • More than 60% of products based on renewable materials, such as wood and cotton; more than 10% contain recycled materials; formed a circular design partnership with Ellen MacArthur Foundation
  • Begun “leading regenerative projects” for water and forestation

A popular pledge across the retail industry is to reduce carbon emissions, with many businesses seeking to reach net-zero by 2050.

With that goal still a way off, however, reduction figures seem to be moving slowly or are not being reported on at all. Retailers therefore need to make sure they are not just jumping on the bandwagon and are actually putting measures in place.

Holding businesses to account

Of course, sustainability targets are not new. In 1990, Coca-Cola set itself a target of making its bottles from 25% recycled plastic. Thirty years later, its bottles still only contain 10% recycled plastic. And the company is the world’s largest plastic polluter, according to sustainability campaigner Changing Markets Foundation.

So, how can retailers be held to account on the bold targets they set?

One way is for official bodies to formulate labelling or certification schemes. However, at this stage none seem forthcoming.

“Universal targets are yet to be defined for measuring the sustainability of retail; therefore the feasibility of individual targets can differ. It all depends on their ambitions and how willing they are to hold themselves to account,” says Petherick.

“The appetite for sustainable fashion and ethical products is growing. Retailers have cottoned on to this as we have witnessed a pervasive rise in greenwashing”

Abigail Morris, Compare Ethics 

However, with consumers eager to do the right thing and buy from sustainable companies, it can be confusing knowing where to spend one’s cash.

“The appetite for sustainable fashion and ethical products is growing. Retailers have cottoned on to this as we have witnessed a pervasive rise in greenwashing,” Compare Ethics co-founder and chief executive Abigail Morris told the Environmental Audit Committee when giving evidence for its Fixing Fashion report.

“Consumers currently struggle to separate the legitimate sustainable options from the dishonest, ambiguous claims of ‘all-natural’, ‘recycled’ and ‘conscious’, which are frequently taken out of context.”

Independent benchmarkers, such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, FTSE4Good, Greenpeace, Peta, The Food Commission or World Benchmarking Alliance, can all help towards understanding where a retailer stands, but it is both time-consuming and difficult for customers to do all the research necessary.

Morris believes there needs to be specific guidelines for retailers to follow. 

“The misleading environmental and social claims made by retailers re-emphasises the need for clear guidance on labelling. This includes details on environmental impacts, provenance of garments and fair labour practices,” she says.

“New guidance on labelling would also positively influence consumer behaviour as what gets measured gets managed,” she concluded.

In the case of food retailers, Barry says universal labelling could help separate the fact from the PR fluff.

“Walking into a supermarket and going through all the thousands of product lines to work out which is green and which isn’t would be extremely difficult, so independent benchmarking at a brand level and product level is needed to help people separate the good from the bad,” he says. 

“We’re seeing brands like Allbirds and Quorn putting carbon labels on their products. For supermarkets like Tesco, where there’s 100,000 SKUs, it’s hard to imagine putting a label on everything, but it’s something retailers are likely to look at over the next few years. 

“I think consumers will look to those that do everything for them – they don’t instinctively want to look over all the products themselves.”

Barry also predicts that consumers will start to look to apps to help identify products’ or retailers’ sustainable credentials.

Amazon, for example, has started putting independent certification on some of its products, which he says is a step in the right direction for the global ecommerce giant.

Meanwhile, apps such as Good on You, which ranks fashion retailers and details their corporate responsibility, have become popular recently.

H&M makes its sustainable progress transparent

H&M has been placing sustainability at its core for more than a decade, integrating practices into its ways of working, with more than 250 of its colleagues now working on sustainability alone.

Campiagn images -  conscious exclusive 2020_04_Vertical_300dpi

The fashion retailer has collaborated with a number of innovators to create tech such as a garment recycling machine for both its H&M and Monki brands.

“Investing in sustainability and having a strategic sustainability programme is today of vital business importance for all companies that wish to be competitive,” says H&M transparency strategy and engagement lead Giorgina Waltier.

“We see technical innovation as a key solution to environmental challenges – for many types of textiles, viable recycling solutions either do not exist or are not commercially available on a large scale. 

“That is why we are collaborating with innovators to tackle this challenge, which is another important factor in achieving our goals.” 

“Customers are demanding stronger sustainability credentials; as a brand, it is our responsibility to educate our customers”

Giorgina Waltier, H&M  

H&M has a proven track record of holding itself to account, reporting on progress towards targets in a detailed standalone report each year, as well as seeking external accreditation, such as from the Peta Vegan Fashion Award, Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Fashion Transparency Index, Sustainable Cotton Ranking and Global 100 Index.

“Customers are increasingly demanding stronger sustainability credentials; as a brand, it is our responsibility to educate our customers and provide clear information on our collections,” says Waltier.  

“They are more interested than ever in taking care of their garments and understanding where they were made and what they are made from.”

Stronger together

Last month, 63 retailers, including Ikea, Kingfisher, Boots and Primark, signed up to the BRC’s Climate Action Roadmap with the goal of becoming net-zero by 2040.

The roadmap aims to put decarbonisation at the centre of all business decisions, reduce emissions across shops and logistics, and explore new technologies to help consumers live more sustainably. 

While there are still some things that retailers wish to compete on – Barry gives the example of food retailers creating the best plant-based meals – working together will ultimately bring the end goal within reach and ensure that retailers keep each other accountable.

Petherick also suggests retailers who may not know where to start could join forces with one of the many tech start-ups that have broken into the market recently.

“For the retailers who are struggling to ramp up their sustainability initiatives, they should consider wider technology partnerships that may help them to achieve their goals and gain the trust of consumers.”

Greenwashing may be a problem at the moment, but with sustainability predicted to be more important than ever post-pandemic, and collective strategies like the BRC roadmap coming to the fore, retailers not taking the situation seriously may soon have the impetus to change.

Petherick says: ”All stakeholders are demanding it, not just investors, employees and consumers, but the planet, too.”