Tesco has been left without a head of sustainability after Anna Turrell resigned at the end of last month.
The supermarket’s group sustainability director has stepped down from her role after just over three years “for pastures new”, she wrote on LinkedIn.
Turrell is widely credited for revitalising Tesco’s corporate sustainability strategy, expanding its net zero commitment, helping to launch the UK Soy Manifesto, and striking a ground-breaking partnership with WWF UK.
The latter initiative led to an industry-wide “sustainable basket metric”, which calculates the environmental impact of commonly bought grocery items in the UK.
Since then, Tesco has used this methodology to track the impact of its baskets.
Under her leadership, Tesco launched sustainability-linked finance schemes to incentivise climate action across the company’s supply chains, particularly among SMEs, while taking the lead on mandatory food waste reporting and plant-based sales transparency.
The grocer also invested £5m in its Brazilian soy supply chain, removed over two billion pieces of plastic from its operations, enabled the launch of the WWF Retailer Commitment for Nature and helped consumers navigate new HFSS restrictions while delivering its Better Baskets initiative.
Earlier this year, she was recognised by The Grocer as one of the most powerful women blazing a sustainability trail in food, drink and retail.
She credited her “incredible” team – which recently won a Grocer Gold Award for the Sustainability Initiative of the Year category – with helping her achieve those successes.
Read more: Anna Turrell’s Big Interview with The Grocer
“We were able to do all this because of the incredible people I have worked alongside (both inside and outside of the company and across our supply chains),” she wrote.
“Their passion, commitment, energy and humanity are the reasons we’ve made such amazing progress and will continue to do so into the future.
“I want to use this moment to profoundly thank every one of these individuals and organisations. You are so important.”
Prior to her stint at the UK’s biggest grocer, Turrell was Nestlé’s UK & Ireland head of sustainability.
She said she joined Tesco because she “wanted to experience another vital part of the food value chain to better understand how we can drive systemic change, and retail was the obvious choice”.
She added the experience “didn’t disappoint” and thanked “everyone who has supported me during this important chapter – I am grateful beyond words”.
Prior to her Nestlé role, Turrell spent 10 years in sustainability consultancy in Europe and Asia, working with various client across the fmcg sector, as well as government and non-profit sectors.
Turrell has not yet revealed where she is moving on to. Tesco is actively recruiting for her role.
No comments yet