With over 80% of our customers telling us they are concerned about the environment, and with plastics and recycling consistently being the top two environmental issues, we opened our first Refill trial at our Middleton store, Leeds, in October 2020, followed by a further 3 stores throughout 2021. The aim was to see if we could change customer behaviour by offering loose products and promoting reusable packaging.

Our Refill stores offer dry food products sold loose in ‘hoppers’ for customers to decant into their own containers, paying only for the volume they need. We were the first retailer to partner with brands that our customers already knew and loved, something we believed would be key to establishing trust and overcoming customer hesitation in trying something new.  We deliberately trialled both a ‘zone’ and an ‘in-parent-aisle’ execution to compare the relative uptake. In addition, we trialled a variety of models for refillables, including a Unilever branded machine which allows customers to refill their shower gels, soaps and detergents into reusable steel bottles, a Vimto branded ‘bartap’ dispense, and ‘prefilled’ solutions including Cocoa Cola in glass bottles which allow customers to grab and go and return the empty later… akin to a deposit return scheme.

Our research shows that over two thirds of our customers have a positive intent towards Refill. Engagement has been highest with pre and post family groups, with 58% of all customers (Asda research) stating Refill offers a more sustainable way to shop. We’ve learned many lessons in terms of operational requirements (particularly in selling variable weight versus ‘eaches’) and managing the supply change. We know there is more work to be done in terms of driving customer participation and tackling the 3 main reasons customers choose not to shop Refill (understanding the price comparison versus packaged equivalent, being intimidated by hoppers and weigh scales, concerns over hygiene of Refill products). Changing shopping habits engrained from the 1950s onwards (as grocers began selling pre-packed produce instead of the traditional counter) was always going to be a challenge… but we’ve made a start!

As the UK’s largest health and beauty retailer, Boots recognises its responsibility to reduce waste and support consumers to change their behaviour and adopt more sustainable habits. In September 2020, Boots and No7 Beauty Company launched a new takeback scheme - Recycle at Boots - to make it easier for customers to give a second life to hard-to-recycle health and beauty product packaging and containers.

Recycle at Boots is available in 700 stores, making it the most accessible scheme of its kind in the UK. It uses pioneering Scan2Recycle technology to track customer recycling, increase transparency and reward users for sustainable behaviour change.

Customers are encouraged to return their hard-to-recycle items - including packaging and containers not purchased at Boots - to recycling bins located in Boots stores. A deposit of five empty containers rewards customers with 500 Advantage Card points when they spend £10: a win-win solution that helps the environment and rewards customers for doing the right thing.

So far over one million items have been collected and recycled from 45,000 registered users since the launch of the scheme, resulting in 20 tonnes of hard-to-recycle product packaging and containers being recycled that might otherwise have ended up in landfill.

Recycle at Boots is a key component of the company’s objectives to halve the environmental impact of its own brand products by 2030, deliver the UK Plastic Pact’s target of 100% recyclable plastic packaging by 2025, and achieve net zero by 2040, in line with the BRC’s Climate Action Roadmap.The scheme provides a scalable takeback solution for hard-to-recycle materials and Boots is partnering with other retailers to promote the scheme and raise consumer awareness. Boots has also worked with On Pack Recycling Label to develop labelling criteria for takeback schemes for hard-to-recycle materials across different formats and industries.

As the UK prepared to host global leaders and changemakers at the COP-26 UN Climate Change conference in Glasgow, Co-op launched a national purpose-led campaign, aptly named Co-op26 - the climate event for everyone. With the brand’s spirit of cooperation in mind, Co-op26 was a multi-faceted campaign which would drive awareness of Co-op’s recently launched 10-point climate action plan, as well as encouraging people to think about how they can impact climate change at a community level, during COP-26 and beyond. The campaign created a moment to shine a spotlight on how Co-op customers, members and colleagues could all play their part in the fight against climate change - starting with their weekly shop.

Co-op26 POS messaging was included in every single food store including clear calls to action; cutting food waste, eating more plants and talking to your politicians. The campaign captured the imagination of our members and customers with coverage appearing across 35+ national, regional and trade titles, earned social media posts and was called out by industry titles and grocery commentators. Co-op joined forces with global citizen-action group Count Us In, to create an online platform for citizens, members and colleagues to make climate-action pledges as part of their daily lives. Co-op’s 4.3 million active members, customers and colleagues were asked to call for greater and faster action on climate change by writing to their MP in advance of the conference.

The word “Lagom” comes from the Swedish phrase “Lagom är bäst” (the right amount is best), which we believe is the secret to healthy and sustainable living. Not denying yourself what you love, while not taking more than you need from the planet. From past research we know this idea of balance has the power to change the way people feel about sustainability.

We know that 82% (Globescan UK2020) of people in the UK want to take climate action, but only 2% know how. Furthermore, our research prior to COP26 found that ‘cost’ and ‘confusion’ remain strong barriers to individuals taking climate action, while ‘money saving’ is the top motivator of in the UK by a significant margin, followed by a better ‘understanding of what to do’.

IKEA is a purpose led organisation with a vision to create a better everyday life for the many people. As part of our People & Planet Positive strategy, we are committed to inspiring and enabling a billion people to live a healthy and sustainable life, within the limits of one Planet.

To support our vision, Live LAGOM was developed: a growing movement of households supporting and inspiring each other to try new sustainable solutions, enabled by IKEA’s products, solutions, and co-workers. The programme engages our customers and co-workers, to make healthy and sustainable living easier, more affordable, and desirable. But goes further than just offering smarter products and solutions – we want to encourage people to understand how they live and discover what’s stopping them making even bigger changes.

From this foundation we’ve been able to create a movement for a better, more sustainable everyday life. Supporting and encouraging a peer-to-peer platform, focused on small actions having a bigger combined impact. Our academic partners were Universities of Surrey and Middlesex.

In early 2022, following a rigorous “Sparking Change” pilot programme, we ran the “Sparking Change National Challenge”, sharing a range of resources designed to help our 14 million Sparks customers eat healthily and waste less food.

Grounded in behaviour change theory, the “Sparking Change” pilot, run in partnership with behaviour change experts Hubbub, focused on four areas – protein from plants, cutting food waste, cooking from scratch and sustainable living beyond the kitchen.

In the pilot, 92 families from across the UK received expert tips, easy-to-follow recipes and the opportunity to join live cook-alongs with chefs for extra inspiration, as well as a session with a nutritionist. A private digital community group was also created for sharing recipes and tips. Three months after the pilot, participants reported that there had been a lasting impact on the way they and their families ate. It was clear to us that this initiative had real promise, and that the learnings should be scaled up.

During the subsequent two-month Challenge, Sparks customers had access to delicious recipes, practical tips and a Sparks Live cook-along event hosted by our resident chef, Chris Baber. Available through Sparks, participants were supported with a range of resources designed to help them make delicious and more sustainable meals from scratch, make the most of the food they buy and embrace plant-based protein.

Customers tell us that, although they want to do more to protect the planet, climate action can often feel overwhelming. However, the Sparking Change Challenge made sustainable living simple and fun, offering a flexible approach with no sign-up or big commitment required, just the appetite to take part.

In October 2021 McDonald’s UK and Ireland launched our new business and sustainability strategy – Plan for Change. The plan sets out ambitious goals and actions across five key areas – Planet, People, Restaurants, Food and Communities – to ensure the business leads positive change from farms to front counter and beyond. It builds new, market-specific commitments on top of McDonald’s Global commitments for the system.

Plan for Change was launched alongside a long-term consumer facing communications platform called ‘Change a little, Change a lot’. Our extensive consumer insight showed us that customers are often overwhelmed by sustainability messaging and feel powerless to take action. So, by demonstrating how little positive changes add up to a lot we hoped to overcome this and engage consumers on the issues that we’re tackling every day and that they can contribute to. We highlighted different positive contributions made by McDonalds from waste and recycling to how we source our food, demonstrating how the scale of our business can bring about positive change.

Plan for Change builds on McDonald’s UK&I history of actions taken to reduce our impact on the planet:

In August 2021 we launched our ‘Earth, We’re By Your Side’ campaign. A six-month campaign that highlighted the work done and still to do on our journey to carbon zero. This was our customers’ first introduction to sustainability at Radley London, and covered categories including responsible leather sourcing, packaging, waste reduction, our suppliers and our Radley Responsible range. A collection made using sustainable materials such as polyester produced from recycled plastic bottles.

The campaign came to life across multiple platforms, including in store, email, blog editorial, direct mail, paid advertising and our key social channels, Instagram and Facebook. Knowing our customer base and their limited knowledge of sustainability in business, we produced content that was clear, concise and authentic, resulting in a stronger awareness of our practices and Radley Responsible range.

Today, sustainability is no longer a single campaign, but a key brand pillar. Alongside our ongoing ‘buy well to buy less’ message, we’re encouraging customers to invest in an artisan crafted Radley London handbag rather than multiple fast fashion alternatives. Through this we’re hoping to influence the behaviour of our loyal customers in other areas of retail too.

Looking ahead, we’ll also be highlighting to customers our investment in the Rimba Raya project, as part of our commitment to environmental reforestation and the growth of local communities and businesses. Since 2021, we’ve teamed up with Climate Impact Partners to invest in an area of 65,000 hectares of naturalised rainforest in Indonesia, protecting it from being replaced with palm oil plantations. Designed to provide long-term education in agricultural business management, this is the first project to have been validated as contributing to all 17 Sustainable Development Goals set out by the United Nations. These aim to tackle everything from extreme poverty and poor sanitation to irresponsible production and the climate crisis.

As part of our commitment to Helping everyone eat better, we encourage customers to make food choices that are both better for them and better for the planet. In line with this, we have carried out various initiatives to support our customers to eat healthier, and we believe our Great Big Fruit and Veg Challenge is a great example of a definitive, best in class initiative to change consumer behaviour - in line with the BRC’s definition of ‘changing consumer behaviour’, of helping our consumers to make the transition to low carbon lifestyles.

We're serious about our responsibility to help our customers eat healthily, no matter how much time or money they have. We also want to help our customers make more sustainable choices, to protect our planet for generations to come. We know that food that is better for us is also better for the planet and a key priority for our business is to develop and deliver healthy and sustainable diets for all and provide customers with the information, incentives and rewards to make better choices for themselves and for the planet. We have committed to developing and delivering affordable healthy, sustainable diets for all with our ongoing reformulation programme and aim to nudge customer buying behaviour with incentives. The Great Big Fruit and Veg Challenge was an initiative and campaign we launched in 2020 to support customers to eat more fruit and vegetables, which we know are absolutely vital to a healthy, sustainable diet. Implementing this campaign allowed us to support our customers to increase their fruit and vegetable consumption, and therefore opt to make healthier and more sustainable food choices.