Climate Action Roadmap Showcase

Galvanising and accelerating the industry’s commitment to deliver net zero by 2040

Climate Action Roadmap Showcase

Galvanising and accelerating the industry’s commitment to deliver net zero by 2040

Climate Action Roadmap Showcase   |    Tackling emissions in the supply chain   |   Reducing emissions in transport and logistics   |   Driving towards net zero properties   |   Changing consumer behaviour

Reducing waste

Waste can come in many forms, from lost material in the manufacturing process, food which has expired, or unnecessary packaging that ends up in landfill. Reducing such wate not only can lower carbon emissions, but save money in operations and reduce landfill. This category is about cutting that waste – food or non-food - produced through retailer operations. For example, moving to more recyclable / compostable materials, removing single-use materials from products and packaging, or making productive use of waste such as food waste for fuel / compost.

currys

HIGHLY COMMENDED
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Our vision is to help everyone enjoy amazing technology. But we recognise that our relationship with tech needs to change. As the #1 tech retailer in all the markets we operate in, we’re uniquely placed to lead the way in changing this relationship. We believe there’s a far better way – better for customers, better for us, better for communities and better for the planet. And that better way is to reduce waste, by giving technology a longer life.

We have increased our focus on helping customers give their technology a longer life through protection, trade-in, repair, and recycling.

When customers buy amazing technology from Currys, we can help protect it from day one. Our care services and tech insurance plans are a promise that we’ll help give your technology longer life if something goes wrong. With breakdown support and a seven-day fix promise, we’re providing peace of mind. With 14 million protection plans, Europe’s largest technology repair centre, and performing over 600,000 repairs last year, we can offer this protection better than any competitor.

Then, we help when customers are ready for something new or their tech finally does reach the end of its life. In the UK, we collected over 1.6m items for recycling & reuse, up +51% YoY driven by our well-received Cash for Trash initiative. As customers become more aware of the environmental consequences of their actions, we are there to help them.

But we’re not stopping there, we’re also focussed on reducing product packaging waste. Since 2019/20 we have removed over 6m pieces equivalent to almost 180 tonnes. This equates to a 14% decrease in the percentage of plastic packaging used and the average weight of plastic per product has reduced by 28%.

dreams

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Dreams’ Recovery Centre is a purpose-designed facility established to receive customer product returns and restore them to a ‘good as new’ condition for resale. The centre was created to enable Dreams to continue to offer a generous returns policy to customers, without driving excess consumption and landfill waste that harms the planet.

Before the Recovery Centre was established in September 2013, Dreams’ process of receiving used products, assessing their condition, and concluding whether to resell them at a clearance store or dispose of them, was inefficient and ineffective, meaning approximately 30% of returned beds and mattresses were discarded.

The centre has been extremely successful. Now, over 90% of Dreams customer returns are recovered and resold. What’s more, the sale of products restored by the Recovery Centre has generated enough additional profit to fund broader recycling and sustainability efforts across the business, enabling Dreams to send 0 materials to landfill for 8 consecutive years.

The creation, development, and momentum sustained around the Recovery Centre is indicative of Dreams’ sustainability focussed culture and paves the way for further improvement to come over the next few years.

M&S

COMMENDED
LEARN MORE

Sustainability is part of how we do business at M&S – it’s in our DNA. We offer exceptional quality products at outstanding value, which are made and sourced with care so that they are simply too good to waste. This is because we know our customers consistently rank reducing food and textiles waste as their most important issues. M&S’ latest Family Matters Index revealed that 72% of UK families are taking steps to reduce household waste and over half (55%) of families say it’s important that the shops they buy from make it easier for them to make more sustainable choices. We have set a target to halve our food waste by 2029/30 from a 2016/17 baseline and to achieve 100% edible surplus redistribution by 2025/26.

Our Food business has been making great strides in both reducing food waste and increasing food redistribution, targets that support our net zero transition roadmap. The hard work of our store colleagues to improve processes, alongside new technology, resulted in a step change in food redistribution in 2022/23, from 56% to 79% of our edible surplus being redistributed to local charities in partnership with our food waste redistribution partner Neighbourly. Overall food waste has also reduced by 46%, improving from 29% in 2021/22, and we are on track to hit our target of halving all food waste across M&S by 2030. No food which ends up in the bin goes to landfill from M&S – instead we send it to anaerobic digestion. Last year we sent a total of 35,000 fewer bins of food to AD because of our progress in food waste reduction and redistribution.

This has been supported by interventions such as the removing best before dates on 300 fruit and veg lines and the innovations such as giving new life to freshly made but unsold bread which is too good to waste and turning it into frozen garlic bread.

n brown

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Our approach to clothing design is centred around a “think circular and right first time” approach. Technology in retail is highly focused on the front end online experience but within product development its use is highly fragmented. We would typically receive three physical samples from suppliers when designing new products that would be sent via air freight. We have taken an innovative stance to use cutting edge technology to reduce the need for physical samples within the product development stage – all in support of our sustainability strategy.

We have been investing in digital product development for a number of years. The process begins with using data from body scans to create unique 3D avatars to simulate the variety of fabrics, customer body shapes and sizes, enabling 3D design and fit of the perfect style for our customer. Our ability to design products digitally, change colours and prints, and more, in the 3D environment has reduced the need for physical samples.

In 2022, we decided to invest in additional Browzwear 3D software licences to allow us to implement digital sampling across our jersey wear lines and therefore reduce the need for physical sample production further. We focused on our Bangladesh suppliers with support from our Bangladesh office to ensure smooth implementation.

We’ve seen a reduction in samples of approximately 1,700 this Spring Summer 23 season, which is a 33% reduction in samples which would otherwise have been produced and sent via air freight. Our use of technology within the product design process is playing a part in making fashion more sustainable and we continue to innovate in this space to increase our impact. 

new look

LEARN MORE

Operational waste is one of the few areas in scope 3 emissions where businesses have direct control. As such New Look began an initiative to tackle waste within our operations, identifying our warehouse and stores as key target areas.

The project began by assessing current processes and packaging use within our operations, quickly noting unnecessary and over-engineered packaging. In addition, utilising our partners expertise, a waste management plan was introduced to increase recycling rates in the DC. New Look has also worked to re-engineer internal packaging, reducing the thickness of plastic, and increasing recycled content used throughout.

Within stores, a closed loop system for clear plastic packing has been implemented whereby all packaging is backhauled through our logistics partners and recycled through known routes where the material is reused within our ecommerce mailer and carrier bag production. This initiative needs continuous engagement with the retail teams to ensure its effectiveness throughout the year.

Through these initiatives, New Look has made significant savings both in cost and carbon emissions, this year reducing waste by 922 tonnes and reducing carbon emissions from store and DC waste by 20%.

simba sleep

COMMENDED
LEARN MORE

Simba’s purpose has always been to help the world sleep better, addressing the hidden, global health crisis that is sleep deprivation; we achieve this by using advanced technology to engineer innovative mattresses, accessories and services that solve the most consistent and universal sleep problems such as overheating, inadequate support and partner disturbance. And just five years after our inception, our ground-breaking Hybrid mattress designs have already earned us over 50 industry awards and Simba is now the world’s most five star rated mattress brand.

But our success can’t be at the expense of the planet; that’s why, among many other sustainable initiatives, we design our mattresses to be 100% recyclable, among many other sustainable initiatives. So we were shocked to discover that, according to the National Bed Federation, the UK sends as much as 76% of the mattresses it discards annually to landfill. That’s over 5 million mattresses a year, and about 167,000 tonnes of waste – which is the rough equivalent of 14 million double decker buses going to landfill every decade.

Whichever way you look at it, it’s a disaster. So when the National Bed Federation challenged our industry to drastically improve mattress recycling rates from 24% to 76%, we decided to take the lead; having identified the two main problem areas as post-trial period returns and mattress re-purchase, we established our own, certified refurbishment programme for mattresses returned under our comfort guarantee, and an industry first, not-for-profit mattress recycling service.

Back to top  ⮝

Climate Action Roadmap Showcase   |    Tackling emissions in the supply chain   |   Reducing emissions in transport and logistics   |   Driving towards net zero properties   |   Changing consumer behaviour

Reducing waste

Waste can come in many forms, from lost material in the manufacturing process, food which has expired, or unnecessary packaging that ends up in landfill. Reducing such wate not only can lower carbon emissions, but save money in operations and reduce landfill. This category is about cutting that waste – food or non-food - produced through retailer operations. For example, moving to more recyclable / compostable materials, removing single-use materials from products and packaging, or making productive use of waste such as food waste for fuel / compost.

currys

HIGHLY COMMENDED
LEARN MORE

Our vision is to help everyone enjoy amazing technology. But we recognise that our relationship with tech needs to change. As the #1 tech retailer in all the markets we operate in, we’re uniquely placed to lead the way in changing this relationship. We believe there’s a far better way – better for customers, better for us, better for communities and better for the planet. And that better way is to reduce waste, by giving technology a longer life.

We have increased our focus on helping customers give their technology a longer life through protection, trade-in, repair, and recycling.

When customers buy amazing technology from Currys, we can help protect it from day one. Our care services and tech insurance plans are a promise that we’ll help give your technology longer life if something goes wrong. With breakdown support and a seven-day fix promise, we’re providing peace of mind. With 14 million protection plans, Europe’s largest technology repair centre, and performing over 600,000 repairs last year, we can offer this protection better than any competitor.

Then, we help when customers are ready for something new or their tech finally does reach the end of its life. In the UK, we collected over 1.6m items for recycling & reuse, up +51% YoY driven by our well-received Cash for Trash initiative. As customers become more aware of the environmental consequences of their actions, we are there to help them.

But we’re not stopping there, we’re also focussed on reducing product packaging waste. Since 2019/20 we have removed over 6m pieces equivalent to almost 180 tonnes. This equates to a 14% decrease in the percentage of plastic packaging used and the average weight of plastic per product has reduced by 28%.

dreams

LEARN MORE

Dreams’ Recovery Centre is a purpose-designed facility established to receive customer product returns and restore them to a ‘good as new’ condition for resale. The centre was created to enable Dreams to continue to offer a generous returns policy to customers, without driving excess consumption and landfill waste that harms the planet.

Before the Recovery Centre was established in September 2013, Dreams’ process of receiving used products, assessing their condition, and concluding whether to resell them at a clearance store or dispose of them, was inefficient and ineffective, meaning approximately 30% of returned beds and mattresses were discarded.

The centre has been extremely successful. Now, over 90% of Dreams customer returns are recovered and resold. What’s more, the sale of products restored by the Recovery Centre has generated enough additional profit to fund broader recycling and sustainability efforts across the business, enabling Dreams to send 0 materials to landfill for 8 consecutive years.

The creation, development, and momentum sustained around the Recovery Centre is indicative of Dreams’ sustainability focussed culture and paves the way for further improvement to come over the next few years.

M&S

COMMENDED
LEARN MORE

Sustainability is part of how we do business at M&S – it’s in our DNA. We offer exceptional quality products at outstanding value, which are made and sourced with care so that they are simply too good to waste. This is because we know our customers consistently rank reducing food and textiles waste as their most important issues. M&S’ latest Family Matters Index revealed that 72% of UK families are taking steps to reduce household waste and over half (55%) of families say it’s important that the shops they buy from make it easier for them to make more sustainable choices. We have set a target to halve our food waste by 2029/30 from a 2016/17 baseline and to achieve 100% edible surplus redistribution by 2025/26.

Our Food business has been making great strides in both reducing food waste and increasing food redistribution, targets that support our net zero transition roadmap. The hard work of our store colleagues to improve processes, alongside new technology, resulted in a step change in food redistribution in 2022/23, from 56% to 79% of our edible surplus being redistributed to local charities in partnership with our food waste redistribution partner Neighbourly. Overall food waste has also reduced by 46%, improving from 29% in 2021/22, and we are on track to hit our target of halving all food waste across M&S by 2030. No food which ends up in the bin goes to landfill from M&S – instead we send it to anaerobic digestion. Last year we sent a total of 35,000 fewer bins of food to AD because of our progress in food waste reduction and redistribution.

This has been supported by interventions such as the removing best before dates on 300 fruit and veg lines and the innovations such as giving new life to freshly made but unsold bread which is too good to waste and turning it into frozen garlic bread.

n brown

LEARN MORE

Our approach to clothing design is centred around a “think circular and right first time” approach. Technology in retail is highly focused on the front end online experience but within product development its use is highly fragmented. We would typically receive three physical samples from suppliers when designing new products that would be sent via air freight. We have taken an innovative stance to use cutting edge technology to reduce the need for physical samples within the product development stage – all in support of our sustainability strategy.

We have been investing in digital product development for a number of years. The process begins with using data from body scans to create unique 3D avatars to simulate the variety of fabrics, customer body shapes and sizes, enabling 3D design and fit of the perfect style for our customer. Our ability to design products digitally, change colours and prints, and more, in the 3D environment has reduced the need for physical samples.

In 2022, we decided to invest in additional Browzwear 3D software licences to allow us to implement digital sampling across our jersey wear lines and therefore reduce the need for physical sample production further. We focused on our Bangladesh suppliers with support from our Bangladesh office to ensure smooth implementation.

We’ve seen a reduction in samples of approximately 1,700 this Spring Summer 23 season, which is a 33% reduction in samples which would otherwise have been produced and sent via air freight. Our use of technology within the product design process is playing a part in making fashion more sustainable and we continue to innovate in this space to increase our impact. 

new look

LEARN MORE

Operational waste is one of the few areas in scope 3 emissions where businesses have direct control. As such New Look began an initiative to tackle waste within our operations, identifying our warehouse and stores as key target areas.

The project began by assessing current processes and packaging use within our operations, quickly noting unnecessary and over-engineered packaging. In addition, utilising our partners expertise, a waste management plan was introduced to increase recycling rates in the DC. New Look has also worked to re-engineer internal packaging, reducing the thickness of plastic, and increasing recycled content used throughout.

Within stores, a closed loop system for clear plastic packing has been implemented whereby all packaging is backhauled through our logistics partners and recycled through known routes where the material is reused within our ecommerce mailer and carrier bag production. This initiative needs continuous engagement with the retail teams to ensure its effectiveness throughout the year.

Through these initiatives, New Look has made significant savings both in cost and carbon emissions, this year reducing waste by 922 tonnes and reducing carbon emissions from store and DC waste by 20%.

simba sleep

COMMENDED
LEARN MORE

Simba’s purpose has always been to help the world sleep better, addressing the hidden, global health crisis that is sleep deprivation; we achieve this by using advanced technology to engineer innovative mattresses, accessories and services that solve the most consistent and universal sleep problems such as overheating, inadequate support and partner disturbance. And just five years after our inception, our ground-breaking Hybrid mattress designs have already earned us over 50 industry awards and Simba is now the world’s most five star rated mattress brand.

But our success can’t be at the expense of the planet; that’s why, among many other sustainable initiatives, we design our mattresses to be 100% recyclable, among many other sustainable initiatives. So we were shocked to discover that, according to the National Bed Federation, the UK sends as much as 76% of the mattresses it discards annually to landfill. That’s over 5 million mattresses a year, and about 167,000 tonnes of waste – which is the rough equivalent of 14 million double decker buses going to landfill every decade.

Whichever way you look at it, it’s a disaster. So when the National Bed Federation challenged our industry to drastically improve mattress recycling rates from 24% to 76%, we decided to take the lead; having identified the two main problem areas as post-trial period returns and mattress re-purchase, we established our own, certified refurbishment programme for mattresses returned under our comfort guarantee, and an industry first, not-for-profit mattress recycling service.

Back to top  ⮝