Climate campaigners are accusing UK supermarkets of greenwashing and have called them out for failing to adopt targets to reduce sales of industrial meat and dairy.
This comes despite sales of animal sourced foods creating around a third of retailer emissions.
A new report by campaign group, Feedback found that supermarkets are quick to adopt climate-friendly marketing with ‘green’ packaging, climate targets and advertising campaigns, but avoid talking about more harmful issues.
While Tesco promotes its ‘Greener Greens’ electric delivery vans, the campaigners claim this only represents an emission saving equivalent to 0.1% of the leading retailers yearly emissions.
However, the group calculated that meat and dairy sales represent around a third of Tesco’s emissions.
Subscribe to Grocery Gazette for free
Sign up here to get the latest grocery and food news each morning
While Aldi’s website states ‘Aldi UK and Ireland have been ‘carbon neutral’ since 2019′, Feedback said the carbon neutral status only applies to the 5% of its total emissions that occur in stores or head office.
Although the group acknowledged that most supermarkets have adopted net zero targets, it is calling for complete transparency from retailers about how much of their footprint is linked to sales of meat and dairy products.
It is also urging for a clear and realistic pathway to new zero, including targets for retailers to sell less of their highest-emitting products, and action to drop promotions on meat and diary products with immediate effect.
Feedback head of policy, Jessica Sinclair Taylor said: “It’s astonishing that greenwashing is rife across the industry with all the UK’s largest supermarkets employing ‘distraction’ type green initiatives, which make little impact on their overall footprint yet serve to deflect attention from the real issues.
“It’s clear from our findings that retailers are still focused on boosting meat sales despite setting net zero targets and pledging to help us eat healthier and more sustainably – and this must now change.”
