Tesco

Every little bit off the carbon footprint helps - Tesco’s story

Tesco aims to bring about nothing less than a ‘revolution in green consumption.’ Over the last three years the global grocery giant has championed carbon footprinting and the Carbon Reduction Label itself, scaling up from orange juice and light bulbs to more than 100 own brand products across most household needs.

When you think that thirty million people shop at Tesco each week, it’s hardly surprising that when Tesco does something, the world takes notice.  ‘Doing more, to emit less’ sums up Tesco’s approach to climate change, and the results are starting to have a radical ripple effect, not just in Britain but around the world.

Right from the start Tesco focused on making its low carbon choices clear and affordable.  By considering all stages in an item’s life-cycle, Tesco have been able to apply carbon-reduction processes every step of the way. Some early, key findings include:

• How food is cooked can have a significant impact on its carbon footprint. Consumers can reduce this by microwaving or boiling on the stove rather than oven cooking. For example, the carbon footprint of oven-baking King Edward potatoes is more than 3.5 times greater than boiling or microwaving them
• Energy-saving light bulbs produce more carbon emissions during manufacturing than conventional light bulbs; however, this is more than offset by the energy efficiency they provide during the use phase which account for 99% of the life cycle of a light bulb
• Raw material production is the main driver of orange juice carbon emissions, driven by inorganic fertilizers used by the supplier
• Concentrated orange juice has a lower carbon footprint than pure squeezed juice, due to lower volumes needing to be shipped and reduced need for energy to refrigerate during transport and retail

Tesco’s drive to reduce its carbon footprint on many of its products has had a beneficial knock-on effect to its suppliers, who are beginning to implement their own carbon-reducing programmes.

If you’re not sure how to decipher a product’s carbon label, Tesco’s approach is a great place to start, offering comparisons to other own-brand products and giving advice about what else you can do to make a difference at home.  The pioneering research led by this retailer has done much to inform what we now know about carbon lifecycles, from boiling rather than baking King Edwards, to exploring how to minimise milk’s carbon footprint.