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The UN’s annual Climate Conference (COP29) has officially kicked off this week, and with the Prime Minister representing one of the few global leaders in attendance, the spotlight on the UK’s climate action is bright. 

Retail has an instrumental role to play in these national decarbonisation efforts, with the industry among the highest contributors to overall emissions in the UK. In recognition of this, last month the BRC hosted our 2024 Climate Action Week – an annual flagship event on climate action in the retail sector, aimed at: 

  • Engaging a range of professionals in the retail space from sustainability specialists and technical practitioners to C-suite executives representing our industry’s largest retailers. 
  • Bringing collective focus onto the question of how to overcome challenges, accelerate progress, and galvanise industry collaboration towards a Net Zero retail sector. 
  • Showcasing the decarbonisation achievements of our Members. 
  • Demonstrating the value of the BRC’s Climate Action Roadmap as a leading guide on decarbonisation and sustainability for UK retail, with our events shining a spotlight on each Roadmap Pathway: Data & Reporting, Energy, Low Carbon Logistics, Sustainable Sourcing, and Low Carbon Lifestyles. 

Read on for a full summary of the week’s events. 

Climate Action Week Webinars 

You can find our full programme of Climate Action Week webinars, with links to watch on-demand, here. Read on for our key takeaways from each webinar. 

ESG Long-Term Trends: Is the Retail Industry Prepared? with BearingPoint 

“High ESG performance results in higher revenue margins and higher shareholder returns.” 

BearingPoint discussed some of the long-term ESG trends relevant to the UK Retail industry and why these are trends retailers should start to prepare for now. Key topics and recommendations included: 

  • The future of ESG reporting: using internal trigger points, such as tech transformations or audit findings, for accelerating investment and capabilities in carbon accounting. 
  • Supply chain transparency through sustainable procurement: using data-driven insights and decisions to achieve supply chain resilience and emissions reductions. 
  • Circular product and business model design: designing circular products to support biodiversity, and utilising circular business models to ensure long-term financial sustainability and business resilience. 

Carbon Removals and the Road to Net Zero with Mondra & One Carbon World 

“Achieving Net Zero needs both significant reductions in carbon emissions and effective carbon removals.” 

Mondra and One Carbon World shared their strategy for achieving net zero, incorporating both carbon reductions and removals into one comprehensive strategy. The key takeaways included: 

  • The business case for carbon removals beyond net zero: lowering exposure to climate risk, boosting revenue through reputational customer acquisition, and business resilience to evolving regulation. 
  • Understanding the SBTi Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) sector target, with a walkthrough of setting FLAG emissions baseline by completing a carbon removals inventory. 
  • An introduction to the Carbon Removals Taskforce. 

Net Zero Playbook: The Informed Tenant with Mitsubishi Electric 

“20% reduction in retail energy use equivalent to 5% increase in revenue; in terms of energy intensity, retail real estate is currently double the 2030 target set by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).” 

Accompanying their informative Playbook, Mitsubishi Electric shared strategies that tenants and landlords can use to improve energy efficiency collaboratively, to work together on a shared Net Zero objective. Key takeaways covered how: 

  • The right choice of retrofit approach can bring mutual benefits. 
  • Modern efficient cooling systems can cut operational and embodied carbon. 
  • Informed tenants can help landlords meet regulatory requirements and increase long-term property value. 

Greening Your Supply Chain: Strategies for Difficult Categories with Carbon Quota 

“Climate change is caused by burning too many fossil fuels. If you’re ever in doubt about what to do next, just look for fossil fuels in your operations and supply chains.” 

CarbonQuota delved into the complexities of decarbonising traditionally challenging procurement categories such as logistics, marketing, and packaging. Key strategies included: 

  • Focusing on one category, using as much existing and available data as possible to drive initial decarbonisation insights and action. 
  • Cultivating strong supplier relationships for entire value chain action. 
  • Using sector language rather than emissions categories to avoid survey fatigue. 
  • Understanding trade-offs across sustainability impacts when making decisions around 'optimum' solutions. 
  • Treating decarbonisation like a cost reduction exercise. 

Mastering Green Claims: Insight for Retail Leaders with Provenance 

“Nature is a good place to start as it makes up the majority of retailers' claims online.” 

Provenance provided an exclusive preview of new research uncovering the current landscape of greenwashing in UK retail and practical support for retail leaders in navigating and implementing best practices. Key guidance included: 

  • To adopt a risk compliance approach to prioritise which claims to review. 
  • The importance of substantiating the brand claim: where to put information for customers to access, and understanding the detail required. 
  • How workshopping claims can be a good way to get agreement and transparency with internal teams and suppliers. 

Sustainable Design in Action with Ocado, Berry Global & Ellen MacArthur Foundation 

“If every household in the UK opted to reuse just one item per week, it would eliminate over 1.4 billion items of single-use packaging per year.” 

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation held a panel discussion with Ocado and Berry Global to explore their latest case studies in sustainable innovation and its role in reducing waste. Key discussions included: 

  • An overview of how Ocado & Berry Global delivered a reusable packaging scheme by focusing on collaboration, standardisation, scalability, convenience, and simplification of customer experience. 
  • Advice from Ellen MacArthur Foundation on how to engage suppliers on realising your circular potential by setting expectations through procurement teams, rewarding innovation, and providing guidance for capacity building. 

Retail CEO Exchange Forum with Forum For the Future 

Facilitated by Forum for the Future, we convened Retail CEOs in a series of in-person workshops on the Sustainability theme of ‘Future-Fit, Net Zero Retailer’. 

The Forum sought to acknowledge that today’s Retail leaders are operating in an unprecedented context: with many already working within a challenging trading environment, the decade ahead brings the further challenge of assuring business prosperity whilst ensuring the successful delivery of Net Zero. The CEO Forum allowed peers to engage in a thought-provoking workshop with actionable takeaways and the opportunity to share experiences with other similar businesses. Three themes dominated: 

Corporate Action 

  • Desire for industry collaboration on net zero. 
  • Prioritisation and immediate action on key areas. 
  • Embedding sustainability into decision-making at all levels. 

Government & Leadership 

  • Proactive government involvement, using industry groups like the BRC to communicate clear priorities for government involvement. 

Market & Supply Chain 

  • Taking responsibility and action on consumer choices. 

It was clear from the feedback from participating CEOs and Senior Leaders that this forum is only the start of the conversation. The participants valued “the chance to speak to other leaders on what they are doing” and “to hear that others are experiencing similar issues.” They requested more “opportunities to collaborate in this space, shared experiences and practical solutions” and most importantly, for the industry to “keep momentum” moving forward. 

Climate Action Keynote Speech by Sir Dave Lewis 

We ended on a provocative evening keynote speech delivered by Sir Dave Lewis, former CEO of Tesco and current Chair of WWF and Haleon. Sir Dave provided invaluable thought leadership on how the retail industry should collectively move forward in the transition to industry Net Zero, inviting the 60 retail leaders present to have “braver conversations” on the need for the industry to step forward in lead on climate action. 

Sir Dave proposed the following 5-point industry agenda: 

  1. Decarbonised energy system – electrification. 
  2. One region agriculture standard. 
  3. Closed loop recycling system for packaging. 
  4. Healthy food price relativity. 
  5. Employee personal development. 

We’ve synthesized Sir Dave’s messages into the following 5 key takeaways, to focus the approach on climate action for us and our members: 

  • Playing to win: “As an industry, are you playing to win, or avoiding losing?” 
  • Setting the standards: “Retailers can set standards, [and] invite others to raise standards.” 
  • Having a braver conversation: “Do you care about someone or something so much that you’re ready to have a braver conversation?” 
  • Customer service on climate action: “If the customer knew what we know, what would they want us to do on their behalf?” 
  • Stepping up when politicians step back: “I am dismayed by the way politicians have stepped back.” 

Climate Action Roadmap 

The BRC's Climate Action Roadmap is the retail industry's commitment to deliver net zero in their own operations and the products they sell by 2040. For any queries, please contact our programme manager Tracey Banks.