WWF: UK supermarkets ‘off track’ to meet critical environmental targets

UK supermarkets are a long way off achieving many of their climate targets, a new report by the World Wildlife Fund has found.

The WWF’s annual report looks at retailers’ progress in key areas as they work towards their commitment to halving the environmental impact of the average UK weekly shop by 2030.

However, progress across the industry had been slow since last year, the NGO warned, and most British supermarkets now were not on track to meet crucial environmental targets on deforestation, food waste and animal protein sales.

WWF pointed to “urgent” deadlines next year to secure deforestation-free food. There is just over a year to go until the first major milestone in the ‘WWF Basket’ initiative – first launched in 2021 in partnership with Tesco, and whose benchmark analysis of an average supermarket basket’s eco-footprint underpins the annual report.

The fast-approaching goal was meant to ensure that key commodities such as soy, beef, cocoa and palm oil did not cause deforestation or land conversion by the end of 2025.

But WWF’s research – an in-depth review of the UK grocery market’s impact across the seven key areas of climate, deforestation & conversion, agriculture, marine, diets, food waste and packaging – showed retailers were still “falling far short of what’s needed”.

Former Tesco CEO and now WWF chairman Dave Lewis said: “Supermarkets have a crucial part to play in the sustainability of our food system and therefore the climate but they are falling short of their climate and nature targets and missing them isn’t just bad for business – it’s a recipe for disaster.

“If supermarkets fail to act now, the impacts of environmental crises will only worsen, with even more consequences for supply chains, prices, and the ecosystems they rely on. With supply chains already on the brink and customers demanding change, it’s time for supermarkets to lead the charge toward a sustainable future.”

Read more: How sustainability efforts in the food industry are going up in flames

The conservation charity claimed a “repeated failure by governments and businesses” to address deforestation and habitat destruction was putting the climate, nature and food security at risk.

Globally, food production uses around 40% of habitable land and is responsible for a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.

It is also one of the most vulnerable sectors to the effects of climate change, with unpredictable weather patterns, droughts and declines in pollinators all affecting food production in recent years.

WWF claimed that, despite engagement from the supermarkets to tackle deforestation – through industry coalitions and calls for robust due diligence legislation to ensure that at-risk commodities such as beef, cocoa, palm oil and soy entering the UK were not causing nature loss – progress had stalled. This was due to “dominant international traders refusing to respond to calls for effective origin control on all supplies and the last government failing to deliver promised legislation”, it said.

The government’s proposed anti-deforestation regulation has been put on hold since before the general election of July, and similar proposals in the EU have been pushed back by a year, following backlash from business lobbies and agriculture ministers.

Without urgent action, the retailers’ 2030 science-based climate targets were “highly likely to be missed”, warns the report.

WWF CEO Tanya Steele said: “Consumers should not have to worry about whether their food shop is fuelling the climate crisis or pushing precious wildlife closer to the brink.

“How we produce food remains one of the biggest threats to our planet. And while it’s positive that UK supermarkets have pledged to source their food responsibly, they must now follow through.

“Supermarkets depend on nature and a stable climate for the food they sell, and most people want to buy sustainably. Unless supermarkets prioritise this, we will all suffer the consequences.”

This year’s findings were scathing, but the data also revealed some positive steps forward. Most supermarkets that submitted data have made progress towards emissions reduction targets, and in setting 1.5°C-aligned Scope 3 (value chain) targets in line with the Science Based Targets initiative.

Additionally, supermarkets that submitted data were, on average, sourcing more than 50% of their UK-sourced produce from land within robust schemes to manage soil health and biodiversity, the WWF noted.

And for the first time, four supermarkets have shared some data on wild-caught seafood species adhering to all aspects of the Seafood Jurisdictional Initiative (SJI), while reported figures for certified seafood are at 88%.

Transparency has also improved – 10 out of 11 major UK food retailers, representing 90% of the grocery market, shared data for the report. Iceland remains the only major UK supermarket that has never provided any data for the WWF Basket.

WWF urged retailers to invest in monitoring at farms in high-risk sourcing locations for all commodities associated with deforestation, and to cease to source those from traders without robust action plans to ensure verified deforestation-free supplies before end of 2025.

Supermarkets should also work to promote alternative protein choices to halve meat sales.

Steele called on the UK government to “step in and urgently introduce the long-awaited due diligence regulations to prevent further destruction of our forests and natural habitats”.

“Without them, supermarkets will continue to pay lip service while the planet pays the price for their inaction – putting us all at risk.”