When it comes to making #Just1Change to help fight climate change, a big one can be deciding where to do your weekly shop.
As part of our ongoing climate series, we asked all the major supermarkets to look at their environmental practices and make changes where possible.
We also gave them questions from you, our readers, based on what you wanted to know about their plans for a cleaner future.
It’s our hope these vast companies recognise it’s ‘Time to Shelve’ certain practices which worsen plastic pollution, increase energy usage or contribute to food waste – and to bring forward positive schemes – many of which have already been trialled or promised in future.
Answers to these questions varied across the board, but here we’ll be looking at two of the most popular discount supermarket chains operating in the UK today: Lidl and Aldi.
In their answers to us, it appears Lidl is attempting to make positive changes. We can’t say the same for Aldi, which initially only answered two of the seven questions our readers asked.
Both Aldi and Lidl are chains that came to the UK from Germany offering low prices and alternate-brand versions of popular staples. But we only need to start making some small changes to see big results further down the line.
We decided to focus on plastic, energy and waste and see if there were some minor changes that could be made to help the environment.
Waging war on plastic
For example, we asked all the supermarkets to make pledges surrounding plastic packaging. Specifically, removing plastic bags from tills, removing multipack shrink wrap and fruit and veg packaging as well as swapping plastic bottles for glass.
Both still have plastic bags at the till, but Lidl explained that it is in the process of swapping out plastic packaging for fruit and veg and ensuring 100% of its own-brand packaging will be widely recyclable, reusable, refillable or renewable by 2025.
It was one of the first British supermarkets to charge for plastic bags and, in 2019, introduced reusable fruit and veg bags across all its stores nationwide.
‘Recent action to reduce plastic packaging across our fruit and veg category include the removal of 24 million plastic trays and punnets as well as nearly 19 million plastic tags,’ the company told us.
‘We have also recently announced that from January 2022 we will be replacing all of our single-use plastic bags available for customers to use for loose fruit and vegetables with home compostable alternatives, resulting in the replacement of 275 tonnes of conventional single use plastic.’
Time to Shelve: The 10 things you asked supermarkets to do
Replace plastic bags at till with paper ones
Remove all plastic packaging on fresh fruit and veg
Swap plastic milk bottles for glass
Stop selling multipacks in plastic shrinkwrap
Only use energy efficient light bulbs
Reduce usage outside of shop hours
Swap open refridgeration units for closed ones
Turn down the aircon
More options to buy food individually rather than multipacks
Reduce food waste
When it comes to bottles, Lidl explained that while it won’t swap to glass, it is taking steps to make its plastic more environmentally friendly.
It said: ‘All of our milk bottles are made from 30% recycled content HDPE [High-density polyethylene] plastic and are fully recyclable. In the past year, we also have removed over 25 million dairy over-lids to support the removal of plastic waste.’
Aldi, on the other hand, gave us some background information about what it’s trying to do but didn’t want to go on the record with a response.
And it didn’t even answer our questions about the bottles.
But in 2020, the chain committed to halving the volume of plastic packaging its uses by 2025.
Nina Schrank, head of plastics for Greenpeace UK, said: ‘The progress that Lidl has made this year are steps in the right direction, but we’d like to see even greater ambition, including matching Aldi’s target of a 50% reduction by 2025.
‘In terms of reuse and refill trials, Lidl are behind the curve and need to catch up, and we hope, go further than their peers. Reuse and refill systems need to be a core part of their reduction plans.’
On their rivals, she added: ‘Aldi has matched Sainsburys with a 50% reduction by 2025 target, but again how they meet this will be crucial.
‘We want to see 25% of this target met by reuse and refill systems in order to drive real progress, and we know there are some interesting innovations behind the scenes. It would be good if they could make more information available about this.’
What about energy?
The question of electricity use is inexplicably tied to the climate debate.
Producing energy is one of the biggest causes of fossil fuel emissions worldwide, so reducing our dependence on it – or switching to renewable forms of it – is crucial.
As part of our campaign we wanted to know how the supermarket chains handled their electricity needs. In this category, both Lidl and Aldi appeared to be making equal progress.
Things like reducing the electricity usage outside shop hours and turning down the aircon seem like no-brainers. Similarly, how about only using energy efficient bulbs in shops and swapping open refrigeration units for closed ones?
Aldi again gave us some background information to say, in effect, it was making progress in this area. Lidl also told us that swapping open refrigerator units for closed ones and using only energy efficient lights was an ongoing process.
However, Lidl was able to go further and explained that it already uses motion sensors to minimise electricity use outside of shop hours and all of the heating and cooling at its stores is controlled through computerised systems optimising conditions to promote long product shelf life, avoid food waste and ensuring efficient energy usage.
The food waste problem
Food waste is an important metric when it comes to analysing supermarket efficiency. Lidl told us it wastes 36,064 tonnes per year and makes all of its data publicly available online here.
Aldi (again) declined to comment and give us a specific number, but is committed to reducing food waste by 20% by 2025 and halving it by 2030.
On its website, Aldi states: ‘We support our growers to reduce waste by flexing agreements to accommodate crop failures and gluts, such as introducing larger pack sizes for a limited time to get more of this product out to our customers. Another example is that we also helped prevent 30 tonnes of potential food waste with one supplier in 2019 by adjusting contract timings to accommodate an unexpected earlier harvest.
‘We have supported our suppliers via our partnership with The Company Shop Group, to save 6458 tonnes of surplus stock to date (since 2015) that would have been wasted.’
Both supermarkets are committed to WRAP’s UK Food Waste Reduction Roadmap, an industry-wide programme that guides businesses to minimise food waste. That’s where the 50% reduction in food waste in the UK by 2030 comes from.
But not everyone is convinced.
‘Supermarkets are known for setting themselves targets without appearing to have much of a plan for how they’ll achieve them: Aldi’s response on food waste (which echoes some other retailers) – cutting it by 20% by 2025, then halving it a mere 5 years later – suggests that like many supermarkets they need to do their homework on solving food waste in their business,’ said Jessica Sinclair Taylor, head of policy at Feedback, a food and environment NGO.
‘Lidl scraped in at the bottom of Feedback’s meat and climate retailer ranking earlier this year, and that’s reflected in their policies now: suggesting that they’re only responding to customer demand is disingenuous, when supermarkets also play a huge role in shaping demand through promotions, product availability and store layout,’ she added.
‘Lidl provided a bit more detail than some other retailers on their food waste reduction plans. But also like the others they don’t acknowledge the role the way they sell food may drive food waste – for example, unnecessary date labels and offers.’
Questions from readers
Our readers – you – wanted to know several things from the supermarkets about what they were doing to help the climate.
Things like considering reuse schemes and refill stations in stores or implementing a seasonal fruit and veg section and limiting the amount of meat and dairy in stock to try to encourage people to consume more sustainably.
Aldi is making progress on reuse and refill initiative, with plans to trial its first deposit return scheme at a store in Scotland and a target to extend this to all its Scottish stores next year.
It is already trialling a range of packaging-free products from refill stations at a trial store in Ulverston, Cumbria.
However, it wasn’t forthcoming about altering stock to nudge its customers towards more seasonal fruit and vegetables – and is instead launching a seasonal fish range.
It point-blank refused to answer questions about altering packaging labels to show people the impact of the product or cutting ties with any suppliers who weren’t climate conscious.
Lidl, however, had a little (lidl?) more to say on the matter.
Both reuse and refill schemes are being explored. Select stores in Scotland are trialling recycling schemes for items like plastic carrier bags, toilet roll wrappers, biscuit wrappers, crisp packets, bread bags and pet food pouches.
It is also implementing a traffic light labelling system on over 50 own-label products to independently grade the items on their sustainability creds. Lidl also says it’s trying to encourage customers to move away from meat following its Veganuary campaign this year.
However, it stopped short of saying it would explicitly cut ties with suppliers that didn’t do more to look after the environment.
‘At Lidl GB we take our social and environmental responsibilities very seriously. Through our publicly available Code of Conduct we define our environmental and social expectations of our business partners, ensuring that all of our suppliers commit to this code,’ the company told Metro.co.uk.
‘We also develop strategic relations with Tier 1 suppliers to collaborate on specific sustainability plans, further driving our collective sustainability agenda forwards.’
While Lidl seems to be walking the walk, Aldi declined to even talk the talk (at least to us). We’re hopeful that’ll change and will update this article if we receive any more information from the company.
A spokesperson did provide us with this statement: ‘Like our customers, we want to do everything we can to look after the environment. That’s why we have been carbon neutral for nearly three years and are committed to tackling waste in all its forms, from food and energy to plastic and packaging.’
Anna Jones, head of food and forests at Greenpeace UK, told us: ‘Aldi’s responses are sorely lacking in detail so it’s hard to tell what, if anything, they’re doing to tackle emissions relating to food.
‘Neither Aldi or Lidl mention meat or deforestation – both essential issues to address if we’re to bring the climate crisis under control.’
If you’re going to make #Just1Change to help fix the global climate crisis, it could start with changing which supermarket you spend your money in.
Time to Shelve: What the supermarkets need to do now
As part of Time to Shelve, Metro.co.uk is asking all nine supermarkets to pledge to continue shelving any bad practices that impact our fight against climate change. We also ask that they take our readers – their customers – comments seriously and work harder towards finding ways to make shopping a greener experience.
This includes:
- Cutting ties with suppliers who refuse to do more to help the environment
- Finding ways to reduce meat and dairy consumption
- Work harder to reduce food waste
- Lose all plastic packaging from fresh fruit and veg – or offer plastic-free alternatives
- Removing plastic shrinkwrap and other unnecessary packaging from all products
- Promoting seasonal fruit and veg sales
- Bringing forward future environmental targets – including large-scale reuse and/or refill initiatives
How did your favourite supermarket do?
To find out how each store got on, click here for the results:
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
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