Tesco ‘to go zero carbon’

Retail giant sets out 2050 target  

Tesco, the world’s third largest retailer, has committed to plans to be ‘zero carbon’ by 2050.

Setting out a vision for the coming century, CEO Terry Leahy said: “We must decouple economic growth from emissions growth by creating a second consumer revolution: by building and fulfilling a desire to live a low carbon life”.

The transition to a low carbon future, he said, “will be achieved not by some great invention, or a grand act of parliament, but through the millions of choices made by consumers, every day, all over the world”.

Leahy’s announcement goes beyond Tesco’s existing commitment to halve building emissions by 2020. The new plans include:

• a home energy service to advise on and install insulation and renewable sources of energy
• carbon labelling to drive demand for greener products
• a ‘buy one get one free – later’ strategy, to cut unnecessary consumption
• a 30% cut in the carbon impact of its products by 2020.

Interestingly, Leahy also ruled out offsets, and raised expectations that a windfarm is in the pipeline.

Tesco’s move follows increasingly ambitious promises in the sector, including Waitrose’s 10:10 campaign pledge and Marks & Spencer’s ‘Plan A’ target to be carbon-neutral by 2012.

“Retailers have done some fantastic stuff over the years,” said Dan Crossley, Principal Sustainability Advisor at Forum for the Future. But, he added, their approach has often been to do “what they’ve always done, but in a greener way – with a ‘pile ’em high and sell ’em cheap’ model.  In a sustainable world, they’ll need to come up with a way of making money by selling less stuff.” – Nick Chan

21 January 2010

Nick Chan

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