 Background
Tesco is one of the top three retailers in the world, with over 440,000 members of staff serving 30 million customers every week. We operate in 12 countries outside the UK, offering food, non-food and retailing services.
We believe that retailers can play a positive role in tackling climate change and want to use the scale of our operations and our unique relationship with millions of customers to empower people to make greener choices.
How the issue was tackled
Customers tell us they want to do their bit to tackle climate change and would do more if it were easier and more affordable. We have listened to their views and have acted to break down the barriers of lack of information and cost. For example:
Cost
- We have permanently halved the price of energy-efficient light bulbs and ran a promotion in Spring 2008 selling over one million energy-efficient bulbs for 1p each;
- and we have extended our range of energy efficient electrical items and green products including across our Value range.
Lack of information
- We have worked with the Carbon Trust to create an easy-to-understand carbon footprint label for our products so that customers can compare a product’s carbon footprint as easily as they can nutritional content;
- We have now launched our carbon labelling trial to communicate the carbon footprint of 20 Tesco products in four product categories - laundry detergent, orange juice, potatoes and light bulbs. In all Superstores and Extras we are giving out a leaflet, “How can we shrink our carbon footprint?” as a guide for customers to reduce their carbon consumption;
- We display visible “By Air” stickers on air-freighted products; and
- We have launched the ‘Greener Living’ website to offer customers advice.
Benefits and impacts
Our aim is to encourage long term behaviour change and we think the best way to do this is to inform, encourage and empower our customers. Our Green Clubcard scheme is a good example of this. We have tried to encourage green behaviour by offering Green Clubcard points for re-using carrier bags. After just 36 weeks our customers had saved over one billion bags, exceeding our 25% reduction target early.
- By reducing the price of energy efficient light bulbs we quadrupled sales
- The growing awareness and demand for eco-friendly products has created new opportunities for innovation and new product lines
Advice to others
- It helps to raise the profile of a project, both internally and externally, if it has support from the highest levels of your business
- Make changes which will encourage long-term behaviour change, rather than quick wins that are not sustainable
- Work in partnership with others to deliver real step change
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