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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Tell kids the story….that’s my challenge. You have lots and lots of parents who shop at your supermarkets and seeing as their children will be the future of tomorrow, it makes sense that you want to help teach kids and families about climate change.

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Because Walmart is such a big player in the supermarket industry, you can very much influence what’s happening.

So my challenge is: get other supermarkets to sign up to the Carbon Disclosure Project.

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We can forget that, while we in the UK are looking at the impact of the way we live our lives, there is a corresponding effect on those who depend on our custom. South Africa has huge challenges on the way they address social and environmental issues.

So over the next week or so I’ll be posting a series of articles and videos on what I found. This first video shows some of the landscape of Cape Town from the top of Table Mountain – look out for Robben island and the new football stadium on the coast.

Table Mountain was the first thing to strike me in Cape Town (other than the World Cup preparations). It frames the city. It’s part of a series of hills. These are pretty rugged and are a contrast to the valley sides and floors which are green with farming activity.

I was slightly confused by the combination of sunshine, warmth and driving on the right side of the road. The traffic was just like any other busy city, as were other details (skyscraper offices, buses, coffee shops etc). The city felt safe and I walked and used the bus system to get around.

Given I was visiting to talk about sustainability, perhaps it was no surprise that there was a lot going on around this. The produce sector (fruit and wine) has a strategy ‘Confronting Climate Change’ where producers have carbon calculators in operation.

One of the biggest carbon ‘hot spots’ on farm is water. This is due to the energy required to pump water for irrigation. Water is a scarce resource. I was shown narrow band irrigation to reduce the water requirement, soil management with compost and straw to reduce water loss and improve nutrient quality and water fertiliser combination to allow the trees to develop without water wastage and using lower power requirement pumps.

It would be remiss not to cover the social issues. You can’t avoid the townships on the edge of Cape Town. I saw the new social housing being built. I also saw the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) programmes which are helping to address some of the inequities. Already BEE enterprises are supplying into the South African fruit processors and at impactful levels.

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Here are the 3 top things that I feel need to happen by the end of the Copenhagen Climate Talks.

There are many more areas that need to be decided and many more points that need to be argued, but I’ve put it down to 3.

These 3 goals are very ambitious and the talks are currently waaaay far off achieving them, but if politicians pull their fingers out, stop bickering and arguing between themselves, then the world can start working towards making the changes that are needed.

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On Saturday, I joined thousands to march 7km from the centre of Copenhagen to the Bella Centre, which is on the outskirts of the capital.

It was cold, but the sun was shining, people were happy, singing and laughing and it was extremely inspiring.

I’m really proud that I went, I’m really proud that I marched, because I marched for me, I marched for you and I marched for the safety of our future.

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Today is the last day that I will have in the Bella Centre, which is where the Copenhagen Climate Talks are happening.

We’re finding it really frustrating that we’re going to be kicked out, so we’re trying our best to obtain secondary passes to allow us in tomorrow and on Wednesday.

Cross your fingers for me!

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Bizarrely a key agreement to help poorer countries tackle climate change has been struck in Brussels – not sure why they couldn’t use the Copenhagen facilities though but maybe that is a long story…...

The agreement is to give poorer countries, and so those less able to tackle climate change – £6.5 billion over the next 3 years. This money can be spent on things like boosting coastal protection, developing renewable energy or tackling deforestation.

There is some controversy as to whether all this is new money and if it is enough but I think we have to break this negativity cycle. This is a helpful step forward that should be congratulated.

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Instead of boring or confusing you with all the policy and technical stuff that’s been happening here at the talks, I thought today I’d do a more personal account of what I’m feeling about the whole process.

It’s all pretty overwhelming and confusing! Take a look…

I’ve also compiled a quick walking tour of the centre so you can see what it’s like inside and I hope you find it insightful. Here it is:

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Here is my first challenge to Asda – to sign up to 10:10 by the end of COP15 and tell everybody by January how you’re going to do it!

Julian, if Boris can sign up City Hall and Gordon can sign up the whole of the UK Government….how about Asda show the others how it’s done. It will save you money every day…..

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Vicky here! Here is a short vlog about the first day at the Copenhagen Climate Talks.

Have a look, tell me what you think and ask away with the questions.

Bye for now!

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Well, that depends on the outcome of the talks over the next two weeks. There will be so much press coverage of the meetings that I’m worried it will be hard to sort the real news from media hype. That’s why we have sponsored Vicky Barron to go to Copenhagen and report back.

Vicky is a very bright recent graduate from Imperial College and will be attending the Copenhagen talks as an official representative of the UK Youth Climate Coalition

The UKYCC is a group of organisations who aim to inspire, unite and mobilise young people to campaign for a cleaner, brighter future. It is run solely by young volunteers, all under the ages of 25, who have come together from a diverse range of backgrounds to achieve their goals.

Over the last six months, they’ve organised an event called “Power Shift” to train over 350 young people on how to make their voices heard, which culminated in a dance performance outside the London eye which received national media coverage as well as organised a youth delegation to go to Copenhagen this December, where 197 world leaders will convene to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, and their journey is being followed by an online documentary.

In the mean time, they’ve raised over £5,000 for their sister organisation the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change to support a Kenyan Youth Delegation to attend the talks in Denmark and have pledged to raise a further £6,000 over the coming months.

Our sponsorship was merely to help remove finance as a barrier to going. Vicky has a clear brief to tell things as they are, whether that is to challenge Asda’s views or to praise us – it will all be posted on my blog over the next 2 weeks.

I hope you will follow our guest blogger and make comments on what she says. I know that I will be.

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That is a tough question to answer in the space of a blog but hopefully I have done it justice. Feel free to respond with anything I have missed out. I also recommend viewing the videos at the end – they are from a variety of angles and represent different views, not necessarily those of Asda but in the spirit of transparency I have included them.

The process

Starts next week and is the formal Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC), signed in June 1992. UN FCCC CoPs have been held annually since 1994, so this is the 16th CoP. Of these the most important was the 4th CoP held in Kyoto, which agreed the Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol

The UN’s own website explains the Kyoto Protocol as an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention encouraged industrialised countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so. Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.”

The main aim of Copenhagen

The aim of the Copenhagen meeting is to set the grounds for a second version of the Kyoto Protocol to run from 2012 when the first ends. The decisions made (or not made) will affect all of us in Britain and around the world. Forgetting the recent media nonsense, the science is very clear that we need to limit global temperature increases to no more than 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels to have a good chance of reducing the risks of dangerous climate change in the future. The consequences of climate change are not just environmental but also economic and financial. Failure to act will mean a fundamental change to the way we live our lives, particularly for our children.

Our hopes

Asda hopes that an agreement started at the Copenhagen talks will send a clear message that climate change must be tackled now and must be tackled by everyone working together. It is not enough to expect people to act alone, they need support to act and in a way that makes sense to them. Preaching and making people feel bad is not the way but working behind the scenes to bring more sustainable products at a price that people can afford is, we believe, fundamental.

Some great resources

Government
BBC
Greenpeace
UKYCC – our guest blogger Vicky will be there with them
Climate Justice

Blogs

The official blog of the talks
New York Times
UKYCC

Why not follow Copenhagen on my AisleSpy blog too.

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Good news! Asda has been rated as a leader in reducing carbon emissions in a key independent survey. Only 100 brands, including us, received the accolade of being a Brand Emissions Leader for carbon emissions performance as measured by the Brand Emissions Leaders Report published this week.

So what does this mean?
To be a Brand Emissions Leader Asda was required to reduce its emissions, or to have already relatively low emissions; to have ambitious targets to reduce emissions further; and to publish the evidence necessary to verify these facts.

Asda met these criteria by firstly achieving absolute carbon emission reductions over the past 3 years – that means that we emit less carbon now than in 2005 notwithstanding the fact that our business has grown – and secondly by committing to a 20% reduction by 2012.

It’s fantastic to get recognition for the great work that all our colleagues have been doing to reduce our carbon emissions across the business. Not only is this great for the environment but it has also saved money which in turn has enabled us to lower prices to our customers.

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