The planet’s biggest supermarkets, including major UK retailers, have “failed to make meaningful progress on methane emissions”, while some, such as Asda, are even “backpedalling” on commitments, new research has revealed.
Not a single supermarket out of 20 assessed even publicly reported their methane emissions or set a target to reduce them, warned Changing Markets Foundation and Mighty Earth’s new report Shelved Again: Supermarkets’ Missing Action on Methane, published today.
Building on from the pair’s first analysis of supermarket methane emissions last year – which warned food retailers were “ignoring the methane problem”, the new study revealed the “bar has not been raised” on the issue, while the progress of some retailers was even going backwards.
Tesco, Lidl and Ahold Delhaize topped the report’s list. However, all three scored less than 50 points out of 100 against key methane-reducing metrics, while Tesco’s score also fell from 51 to 48 year on year.
All three had “taken some important steps, including overall GHG emissions reporting, validated SBTi targets and, though limited, targets to increase sales of plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, the report noted.
However, the top three, like the report’s other 17 retailers, fell short of credible methane action, the campaign groups said. “And their position at the top of the rankings reflects weak sector-wide performance, rather than meaningful leadership.”
Asda, meanwhile, showed the most significant decline, with its points total falling by 7.5 points to 17.5 out of 100, due to a significant weakening in language across several climate metrics.
Read more: UK’s leading supermarkets ‘way behind’ European rivals on sustainability goals
The lack of progress by all 20 retailers, which generated a combined annual revenue of $2 trillion, pointed to a “piecemeal approach” to climate challenges, the report claimed. Methane “remains a blind spot for retailers, not in terms of awareness, but in delivery”.
It added there was also a “lack of clear leadership, leaving a vacuum at the top and an opportunity for retailers within the top 10 to lead by example and push the sector forward”.
This was “despite methane accounting for a significant share of their Scope 3 emissions generated across their supply chain, arising mainly from the meat and dairy products they sell”.
The NGOs are now calling for retailers to set science-based methane reduction targets of at least 30% by 2030 (from a 2020 baseline), backed by a “comprehensive methane action plan covering the entire value chain and underpinned by transparent disclosure of emissions”.
By increasing and actively promoting their plant-based offerings and working towards a target of 60% plant-based protein against 40% animal-based protein by 2030, “food retailers can strengthen their climate and methane action while enabling the necessary shift to more sustainable and healthy diets”, the groups urged.
“For a second year running, supermarkets have shelved ambition to tackle superheating methane embedded in meat and dairy supply chains,” said Mighty Earth senior director Jurjen de Waal.
“Methane emissions from livestock agriculture, primarily cattle, are a key driver of climate change. Rapidly cutting methane is one of the fastest ways to put the brakes on global warming. Supermarkets are uniquely positioned to support a shift to diets with less meat and more plants, a key solution for tackling methane.”
Rapidly tackling methane was “a quick win to halt global heating”, added Izzy Howden, senior campaigner for Changing Markets.
“The 20 retailers in this report are headquartered in countries signed to the Global Methane Pledge, but all remain far off track to deliver the reduction of at least 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels. These retailers hold a unique and powerful position to influence the global food system. Yet their failure to act has created a leadership vacuum that must urgently be addressed.”
No comments yet