If Ahold Delhaize had already decided last year to make its own activities more sustainable, the supermarket giant is now also sharpening its ambitions for the entire supply chain. In eight years the CO2emissions attributable to in-store products have been reduced by 37 percent compared to 2020, Ahold announced on Tuesday.
The ambition for the production chain is now considerably higher than what the parent company of Albert Heijn and Etos was heading for in recent years: a reduction of 15 percent. However, the target is lower than that for own business units and activities, such as shops, transport and offices. Ahold wants to halve its emissions by 2030 compared to the reference year 2018.
The pollution of companies is often divided into domains – usually referred to in jargon as Scope 1 to 3. The first domain is ‘direct’ pollution, through the transport of goods or from cooling installations. The second mainly concerns harmful emissions from energy use. Scope 3 is the pollution that takes place outside the company, but within the chain.
Retail companies such as Ahold (turnover: 75.6 billion euros, 413,000 employees) generate by far the most pollution in the latter domain. Because retail chains trade in other people’s products, most CO2emissions often caused by the farmer, manufacturer or broker. Of all CO2 that was directly and indirectly attributable to Ahold in 2020 was more than 95 percent in the chain.
Lawsuits
The latter area is the most difficult to tackle. Companies are highly dependent on the ambitions of suppliers. Ahold now wants to tackle emissions in the chain through a combination of three measures: it wants to include less polluting products in its range, encourage customers to make better choices and encourage suppliers to make their production cleaner.
Ahold’s new ambitions come just under a year after the company was surprised by a compelling letter from Milieudefensie. In January, the climate organization sent a call to 29 large Dutch companies to reduce their pollution harder. Compared to the year 2018, they would increase their CO2emissions by at least 45 percent if they wanted to prevent significant global warming.
Read also: Let Milieudefensie talk to you, say the companies
Companies that do not sufficiently adjust their ambitions run the risk of legal action, Milieudefensie warned. There was enough reason for the CEOs of the 29 companies to take that threat seriously. Milieudefensie previously won a case against Shell, after which the oil company must reduce all emissions by 45 percent, including those of petrol at the pump.
In many companies, Milieudefensie’s frustration mainly focused on the chain. Companies seemed to focus mainly on their own activities, with which they “shove a large part of their responsibility under the rug”. The climate organization held several talks with the Ahold top, but said it did not get the promises it wanted.
One and a half degrees
Incidentally, Ahold’s new, tightened course does not yet meet the requirements of Milieudefensie either. To begin with, a 37 percent reduction in emissions is lower than the required 45 percent. In addition, the new target is based on 2020 as the starting year, while previous targets were compared to 2018 emissions. And in those two years, emissions in the chain have only increased, because Ahold has started selling many more groceries during the corona pandemic.
Milieudefensie is therefore not yet convinced of the new ambitions. To the ANP news agency, the organization states that Ahold “juggles with numbers”. Compared to 2018, and not 2020, the reduction is nowhere near 37 percent. “With this new climate plan, Ahold Delhaize makes itself even more legally vulnerable and continues to cause dangerous climate change.”
According to a spokesman, the fact that Ahold is now working with a different starting year has to do with the measurement method. Like many other large companies, Ahold has its ambitions calculated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), an independent arbiter that approves companies’ climate plans. According to the Ahold spokesperson, every new or revised plan is compared with the latest available emission figures, in this case those of 2020.
The SBTi then assesses how far-reaching the plans are. In the Paris climate agreement it has been agreed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, but preferably 1.5 degrees. With the new target for the chain, Ahold responds to this sharper ambition, according to the SBTi. This also applies to the plans for emissions in one’s own company.