Treading lightly

The Waitrose way

We believe in making the right choices for the environment by reducing packaging, waste and CO2 emissions, and responsibly sourcing our food.

As farmers ourselves, we understand both the challenges and the importance of maintaining high standards of agricultural management. We work with our farmers, growers and suppliers to achieve the highest standards of quality, safety, and environmental and animal welfare across our supply chain. For example, read about our work in Promoting trade with Africa.

Building on our previous work with key suppliers to improve their water efficiency and stewardship, and reduce their carbon emissions, Waitrose is introducing supplier targets in the areas of carbon, waste and water.

We are working on initiatives to reduce food waste and packaging, and increase recycling, to further minimise our environmental impact. See Packaging, waste and recycling.

We are also striving to improve the sustainability of our products more widely, and one example of this is our work on palm oil.

Palm oil

The palm oil industry has a significant impact on forests around the world. As an active member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and the Retailer Palm Oil Working Group hosted by the British Retail Consortium, we work with our suppliers to develop robust and auditable traceability systems for palm oil.

Our target is to have 100% Certified Sustainable Palm Oil in our own-brand products by December 2012. By the end of 2010, 25% of the palm oil in our products was from RSPO-certified sustainable sources, and we plan to increase this to 75% by December 2011 and 100% by the end of 2012. In the interim, all palm oil sourced for our own-brand products is covered by the Greenpalm certificate trading programme, endorsed by the RSPO.

We remain committed to clearly labelling our own-brand products so that those containing palm oil can be identified by customers. Once the RSPO Executive Board sanctions the use of a trademark logo for sustainable sources, Waitrose will consider adding it to product packaging.

In May 2011, Waitrose was the first supermarket to commit to sourcing 100% of the soya in own-brand products from Roundtable on Responsible Soy certified sources by December 2015.

Mushrooms, apples and milk are just some of the Waitrose products from the Partnership’s working farm on the Leckford Estate, which is certified to the LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) standard.