Here we are at Walmart Central for the International Sustainability Summit this week. Myself and all my counterparts from around the world are gathered to swap notes, compare strategies and through our combined thinking move sustainability in Walmart further and faster.

Please take a look at the vblog – bet you didn’t think the Home Office would look so un-grand! At Walmart and Asda our profits really do go into lower price rather than flashy permises.

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Asda was one of the first signatories of the Courtauld Commitment in 2006 and now we are amongst the pioneer companies signing up to Courtauld Commitment Phase 2. But what is the Courtauld Commitment?

In a nutshell, it is an agreement owned by the Waste & Resources Action Programme that intends to move the whole grocery sector forwards in minimising resource usage and so to reduce the climate change impacts of ourselves and of our customers. The picture above shows you the other leading brands who have also signed up this week.

Courtauld 1 was primarily focused on reducing packaging. Asda signed up to its 10% reduction by weight but then smashed this by achieving an industry leading 27% weight reduction. Courtauld 2 continues this theme but in more areas and using carbon as the common currency:

• Packaging – to reduce the weight, increase recycling rates and increase the recycled content of all grocery packaging, as appropriate. Through these measures the aim is to reduce the carbon impact of this grocery packaging by 10%.
  
• Household food and waste – to reduce UK household food and drink waste by 4%.
  
• Supply chain product and packaging waste – to reduce traditional grocery product and packaging waste in the grocery supply chain by 5% – including both solid and liquid wastes.

Our comment to the press summed up our thoughts well: “Since signing the Courtauld Commitment in 2006, we’re proud to have achieved an industry-leading 27% reduction in packaging compared to just 10% across the rest of the industry. That’s why we’ve committed to go even further by helping WRAP achieve its next phase. We know these are stretching goals, especially given the significant reductions we have already delivered, but look forward to playing our part in helping WRAP deliver on these targets to significantly reduce waste throughout the supply chain.”

This is all good news for business, customers and the UK as a whole. We wholeheartedly encourage those who have not yet signed up to contact WRAP and discuss it now.

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A carbon footprint is a way of measuring the carbon emissions of your business and show how it is affecting the environment. Most companies in the UK have a carbon footprint to satisfy the demands of investors. As Asda is not a UK listed company we are under no pressure to produce a carbon footprint. However, we have decided to produce a footprints for every year since 2007 to ensure that we are being truly transparent in how we are reducing our environmental impact. We will update these every calendar year at least. Please do take a look for yourself.

Some headlines: We defined our carbon footprint with the widest scope of any UK retailer including everything from energy and transport to the waste we produce and our business travel.

Since 2007 our approach and dedication in providing customers with great products at low prices has seen our sales grow by 18%. Clearly this is good for the bottom line but does mean that we are transporting more stock and running busier stores, likely to mean we emit more carbon into the atmosphere unless we have a robust environmental plan in place.

Our determination to reduce our environmental impact has meant that over the last two years our emissions in absolute terms have actually reduced by 7%. This has been achieved across the board but particularly by focusing on reducing electricity usage, refrigerant gas leaks and by making our transport fleet more efficient. If we measure this against our growth (called an intensity target) which is the manner used to report carbon footprints by most of our competitors then we reduced our emissions by a whopping 21% over the past two years.

Put it this way:
2007: for every £1m of sales we emitted 83 tonnes of carbon
2009: this dropped to 66 tonnes of carbon per £1m sales

Our work won’t stop there nor will our focus on delivering affordable and sustainable products.

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We have been working on reducing our environmental impact since 2005 but in that time have mainly been focussing on our direct emissions, ie those produced by our operations like electricity, diesel usage etc. We have made great strides in reducing these but more on that in a later blog!

Walmart undertook a piece of analysis with Conservation International a few years ago that showed us that these operational activities account for only 8%, whereas our supply chain, ie products that we sell, account for 92% of our total carbon footprint. However, you need to understand your own carbon before you can tackle supply chain carbon. Today is the day that our focus shifts to partnering with our suppliers to reduce product emissions.

Walmart has just announced that we will eliminate 20 million metric tonnes of carbon (tonnes of CO2 equivalent) from our products between now and the end of 2015.

Paul Kelly, Asda’s External Affairs and Corporate Responsibility Director, took part in the webchat with Walmart – available here – that launched the announcement. Check out his vblog here!

More on this to come but please do send me your comments.

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This week marks a new milestone in our drive to make sustainable products both affordable and accessible. We have unveiled a new machine in Asda Barnsley that allows our customers to refill laundry conditioner pouches rather than having to take a brand new bottle. Why bother you might ask – well how about the fact that not only does it save 96% of packaging weight but also saves £3.70 over 10 refills – that makes it around half the price of an equivalent branded conditioner. It’s really easy to use – as ably demonstrated by Sarah in the video.

Last year we reduced the weight of the packaging across our fabric conditioners by 55% (a total of 596 tonnes) and this project takes this a massive step further.

The first machine is now live in our Barnsley store and there will also be machines at Swansea and Hartlepool from 31st Jan and Govan and Carlisle from 7th Feb. You can choose from Asda Baby Soft or Asda Soft Linen & Cotton Flower conditioners, both of which are big sellers for us. The machine automates the whole process and makes sure that it is simple and mess free.

The discount is applied as follows:

This project is the fruition of over a year’s work with WRAP , Eziserv and the manufacturers McBride’s and Unilever, not to mention a lot of sweat and tears from colleagues of mine at Asda.

Talk about feeling good about both saving the environment and the cash in your pocket! If the trial is successful then we would hope to roll it out across all our stores – and maybe other products. I’ll keep you updated on its success through this blog.

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