Tesco has team up with environmental charity WWF to launch the Tesco and WWF Sustainable Basket Metric, which aims to map the environmental impact of food production.
The Metric will track the environmental impact of a sample of some of the most regularly purchased foods against key sustainability criteria, including climate change, deforestation and food and packaging waste. Tesco and WWF will run the first full assessment against the metric in early 2020 and publish the results. They will also then be able to confirm a date by which they believe the target of halving the impact of the average UK shopping basket can be reached, with 2030 a potential ambition.
The two organisations are working together on a number of other sustainability projects including soil health and water usage programmes in UK agriculture, and working towards the production of zero-deforestation commodities such as soy in Tesco’s supply chains.
Tesco Group CEO, Dave Lewis 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.”
WWF UK CEO, 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 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases. We want other retailers to take a similar approach and come together to ensure a more sustainable approach to food production.”
Image ©Licensed to i-Images Picture Agency. 16/08/2017. London, United Kingdom. Tesco. Tesco Milton Keynes, Northampton, Tesco Distribution Centre Daventry. Picture by Andrew Parsons / i-Images.