Lidl and Waitrose top Which?’s first supermarket sustainability rankings

IT'S not easy being green but Which? is trying to help when it comes to your shopping.

The consumer watchdog has tried to calculate how sustainable each of the main supermarket brands are to support climate conscious shoppers.

Climate change and sustainability have become big themes in our daily lives.

It influences everything from the car we drive and the amount of energy we use at home.

Many shoppers are also concerned about the carbon footprint they create from their daily shop.

Which? gathered hundreds of pieces of data from annual reports and from supermarkets directly in order to compare their sustainability performance.

It focused on plastic use, food waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

The research measured operational greenhouse gas emissions per million pounds of revenue including location-based emissions for grid electricity use, plastic use per packs of groceries sold and food waste as a proportion of food sold.

Each of the 11 supermarkets - Aldi, Asda, Coop, Iceland, Lidl, M&S, Morrisons, Ocado, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose - were given a score for every category.

None of the brands performed well in all three categories.

Which? said this shows just how much work they each need to do to be more sustainable.

Lidl and Waitrose were tied at the top of Which? 's sustainability league table, both scoring 74%.

Marks & Spencer and Iceland were at the bottom with 48% and 29% respectively.

Neither agreed with the findings.

Here is how the supermarkets performed.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Supermarkets were scored out of 25 for how they tackle greenhouse gas emissions.

Lidl was rated above its rivals with a score of 25 and just ahead of Aldi which scored 24.

Food waste

Brands were given scores out of 11 for managing food waste.

Ocado beat the other supermarkets when it came to food waste with a score of 11.

It redistributes almost all surplus food, leaving just 0.04% as waste.

Lidl scored poorly on food waste with just two points, but it claimed that its lacklustre performance was due to selling more fresh items than other supermarkets, in relative terms.

Plastic reduction

Waitrose ranked towards the top across earning reducing greenhouse gas emissions and got strong results for both plastic and food waste compared with other supermarkets. 

The Co-op was the best supermarket on the overall issue of plastic, as Which? found it has a market-leading 94% of own label plastic packaging recyclable at kerbside.

In fact, 100% of its own-brand plastic packaging can be recycled if you include in-store collection points.

A statement from M&S in response to the research said: “Which? is just one industry benchmark based on certain criteria and our position does not reflect M&S commitment to building a sustainable future."

M&S said it has a target to be net-zero by 2040 and is already taking action by making all food packaging recyclable by the end of next year and cutting plastic food packaging overall by 30% by 2027.

Richard Walker, managing director at Iceland said the supermarket does does not recognise the data used by Which? or accept the low ranking on sustainability.

He told The Sun: "Far from ‘working with the supermarkets to acquire the most accurate and comparable data available', as they claim, Which? have chosen to ignore repeated warnings by us and our legal advisers that their methodology was completely flawed."

Mr Walker said the carbon intensity calculation "grossly misrepresents" Iceland because it is based on retail spend rather than sales volumes, penalising supermarkets that sell at low prices. "

He added: "It also fails to take account of our 100% usage of renewably generated electricity.

"Their calculation of plastic intensity is equally incorrect, and bears no relation to our own audited and published data on plastic usage, which is used to calculate the packaging taxes we pay.

“Iceland is committed to total transparency in regularly publishing audited data on its plastic consumption, carbon usage and food waste."

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