Retailer green initiatives are 10-a-penny these days. There's Plan A from Marks & Spencer. Tesco has made a £500m green pledge. Now Asda is in a war on packaging, and Sainsbury's has its designer reusable bags.

One supermarket conspicuous by its absence from the great green debate, however, has been Morrisons. But that all changed last week with the publication of its first corporate social responsibility report.

Morrisons has, for many years, been busy working on green issues behind the scenes out of the glare of the press, it claims.

Tesco and M&S scored PR brownie points for announcing big commitments to improve their environmental impact at the beginning of the year, but Morrisons chief executive Marc Bolland says green is not about grabbing the headlines.

"We've not always been taken as the forerunner on environmental policy," says Bolland. "We have been [doing work in this area], but not communicating. It is not about being modern or getting the headlines, it's a licence to operate and every company should be doing it."

Morrisons already sources most of its meat and a lot of its fresh produce from the UK. It has also committed to invest in more local and sustainable sourcing.

For example, 95% of its beef and pork are British, milk, poultry and in-season lamb are 100% British, and, in season, 100% of its carrots, swedes and cauliflower are, too.

As well as helping its image of being a local retailer, it also goes a long way to keeping its environmental impact down.

Morrisons' "roadmap" set out in its CSR report includes plans to reduce its carbon footprint, saving energy, increasing transport efficiency and, above all, preventing waste.

"We already recycle 72% of our in-store waste," he says. "That's higher than any of the other supermarkets - only Tesco comes close. This is not something we have done suddenly. We've done it for years and now our target is to reach 80% by 2010."

One of the reasons Morrisons is ahead of the recycling game, according to Bolland, is because of the retailer's unique set-up. It has its own manufacturing business and plastic crates have been re-used in a closed loop system for years, cutting down on packaging waste. "We were the first to introduce plastic crates," says Bolland. "If we pack the product ourselves it always goes in these plastic crates."

As well as aiming to recycle more, it also plans to cut waste sent to landfill by 50% by 2010. But it may find itself being overtaken by its competitors. By 2010 Asda has set itself the target of recycling, reusing or composting everything the supermarket disposes of at the back of its stores instead of sending it to landfill.

Reducing product packaging is another key performance indicator for the big four, but again Morrisons' target to reduce own-label packaging by 15% by 2010 is a little short of Asda's plan to cut its own-label packaging by 25% by next year and Tesco's plan to reduce the same amount of packaging on both own-label and branded products by 2010.

Yet it is determined to concentrate on its goals rather than look at the competition.

As Morrisons makes further improvements to its distribution chain, food miles will also be reduced, adds Bolland. It has been working on its supply chain since the acquisition of Safeway in 2004, and has earmarked a £90m investment over the next three years. Three new depots in the south will create a more efficient chain.

The retailer is also working with the Carbon Trust to reduce its emissions. It plans to cut its 1.4 million tonnes of emissions by 36% by 2010. In the past 12 months it has already achieved a 6.6% reduction in its total carbon footprint. This was in part achieved by training 100,000 colleagues in the Switching On to Switching Off campaign, which produced average energy savings of 4.7% across stores. Morrisons has yet to declare whether it will embrace the Trust's carbon footprint labelling scheme.

Morrisons' green targets may have been announced later than its competitors', and some may be more conservative, but the retailer is committed to making realistic changes more quickly.

"Our new environmental plans have been made for three years," says Bolland. "Other supermarkets have given themselves bigger targets on a five-year or longer-term basis.

"It fits the Morrisons culture to 'get on with it' and put first targets down on a short-term basis."Carbon Footprint

Carbon emissions

Morrisons: will reduce by 36% by 2010

Asda: will halve by 2018

Sainsbury's: cut more than 20% since 2000

Tesco: aims to reduce 50% per cent by 2020



Energy targets

Morrisons: 10% of energy to come from renewable sources by 2010

Asda: 100% to come from renewable sources

Sainsbury's: the first to install wind turbines

Tesco: will halve average energy use in UK by 2008, two years early



Packaging pledges

Morrisons: reduce own-label packaging 15% by 2010

Asda: cut own-label by 25% by next year

Sainsbury's: reduce by over 5% each year

Tesco: aims to cut all by 25% by 2010



Waste to landfill goals

Morrisons: aims to recycle 80% of waste generated from store operations by 2010; will cut waste to landfill by 50% by 2010

Asda: aiming for zero waste from store operations by 2010

Sainsbury's: aims to reduce waste sent to landfill by 5% per year

Tesco: recycles 72% of in-store waste

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