What are the UK Supermarkets already doing?
The UK retail sector as a whole, through the British Retail Consortium and its Environment Policy Advisory Group, has taken a first step towards industry-wide improvements in environmental management. In 2001 it published Towards Retail Sustainability, which outlined objectives and targets for the next five years. Within the supermarket sub-sector itself, the response to the environmental challenges outlined above and the level and commitment to reporting is varied. Whilst some companies have registered environmental management systems, include references to key environmental issues and aspects of performance in their annual report and produce standalone environmental reports, others don’t. The quality of reporting also varies considerably with several companies still limiting their reports to a discussion of the issues, highlighting success stories but failing to set and report against meaningful and comparable performance targets. This project provides an opportunity to address this
