Supermarkets are ramping up net zero efforts – but is it enough?

As we approach this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), there’s been no shortage of big announcements from key names in the grocery industry. Today, Sainsbury’s, the event’s principal supermarket partner, said it was bringing forward its target to become net zero across its own operations to 2035 – five years ahead of its original plan.

But the grocer is not the only one making bold statements ahead of the conference. Last week, Tesco set out the steps its suppliers need to take to meet its pledge to be net zero across its entire supply chain by 2050; M&S recently revamped its Plan A sustainability strategy to include more ambitious targets, such as cutting its own carbon footprint by a third by 2025; and the Co-op joined a new carbon reduction campaign to help mitigate the impact of the climate crisis.

In reality, most of these commitments sound bigger than they are – once scrutinised, it is clear they are largely in line with the UN’s own ambitions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

Additionally, we’ve become so used to companies announcing carbon-cutting initiatives that the actual execution of said targets is becoming nebulous.

Becoming net zero “across own operations”, which is what Sainsbury’s aims for as part of this latest announcement, is arguably the easy part. Installing 100% LED lighting across its supermarkets by the end of the year is one thing, but reducing indirect Scope 3 emissions across an entire value chain is an exceptionally harder challenge, involving a series of other players within logistics and supply chain across a series of countries. Sainsbury’s, for instance, sources more than 30,000 products from over 70 countries.

The company proudly mentioned its £320m investment in sustainable initiatives over the past decade, but that number might pale into insignificance compared with the vast sums of money it will take to make real, impactful change across its value chain.

Read more:

• What a ‘COP26 for food’ would look like – and why we desperately need one

• The Net Zero Strategy’s meat and dairy omissions could turn out to be irrelevant

• Can Tesco entice suppliers to cut carbon emissions to net zero?

• Scope 3: how businesses are tackling the final frontier in carbon emissions

Bold moves, such as completely switching an entire transport network from diesel to electric or opting for sustainable farming methods, are crucial to delivering supermarkets’ ambitious targets. Yet these decisions will not always be beneficial for the business and could well mean higher prices for customers.

Then there is the topic of deforestation and tackling problematic commodities such as soy and palm oil. Achieving net zero depends on addressing these issues, which will require massive collaboration from everyone in the industry. But these have been notoriously difficult to tackle because of fractured supply chains and socio-political issues in producing countries.

There are signs of progress – the recent soy roadmap, for example – but supermarkets are still coming under fire for not being bold enough in their efforts to tackle deforestation. A similar label applies to government, whose recent Net Zero Strategy was criticised for being “devoid of urgency” on food. 

COP26 is just the time for governments and companies alike to give greater thought and action to their net zero efforts. So Sainsbury’s tooting its horn over changing lightbulbs is fine, as long as it’s followed up with detailed plans for thornier issues such as Scope 3 emissions.

For now, at least, it remains unclear how exactly those larger commitments are going to be delivered and what the real sacrifices behind them are – slightly concerning, considering defining tangible policy change is what the UN Climate Change Conference is all about.