Green Wars (From Hereford Times)

Green Wars

4:06pm Friday 2nd February 2007

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On the 18th of January Tesco announced a number of measures that will address it’s energy use and carbon emissions. These include reducing the number of air freighted foods it sells, cutting energy use in its stores, converting its distribution fleet to 50% bio-diesel, and attempting to ‘carbon label’ all of its products....

This follows the announcement by Marks and Spencer a week earlier of its five year plan to make the company carbon neutral. Under its "eco-plan" M&S aims to cut energy use, use more renewable materials, and source its food from the UK and the Republic of Ireland as a priority in an attempt to reduce air freight.

Back in November Asda revealed that it will reduce the amount of packaging from its stores and distribution centres going to landfill to zero in the next five years.

And prior to that Sainsburys switched its fresh produce to compostable packaging, saving an estimated 3500 tonnes of plastic per year.

The National Consumer Council’s recently published report ‘greening-supermarkets’ rated each of the big players according to their green credentials. At the top of the list is Waitrose, and at the bottom sit Morrisons and Somerfield.

Where we have previously seen price wars, am I right in thinking we are witnessing supermarket ‘green wars’? As Britain’s biggest retailer, the effect of Tesco’s initiative will, undoubtedly, be huge. Not only because of the direct impact of their activities, but because of the knock-on effect of others following suit.

Perhaps M&S have proved, by the recent turn around in their profitability, that responsible business can be profitable business.

Whatever I might think about supermarkets, what is striking is that the behaviour of big retailers seems to be changing. These “consumer-led” businesses are responding to consumers’ pressure for greater responsibility.

A really important lesson emerges from this, when you remember that ‘the consumer’ actually means you and me. Our combined buying power is having a real effect.

So if you ever thought that you couldn’t change the world – think again.

To see the National Consumer Council’s full report, go to http://www.ncc.org.uk/responsibleconsumption/greening-supermarkets.pdf