Lidl showing great promise with sustainability efforts

We only need to look around to see the companies attempting to be more sustainable. But few have articulated or actioned these efforts as well as supermarket chain Lidl.

With a growing network of 167 stores in Ireland and a further 40 north of the Border, the retailer’s “A Better Tomorrow” sustainability strategy is a broad-based attempt to enhance all aspects of sustainability, focusing as it does on protecting the environment, responsible sourcing, the local community and its own employees. This means that its ethos is embedded across all aspects of the business, rather than being simply the domain of one person or department.

Owen Keogh, head of corporate social responsibility with Lidl Ireland and Northern Ireland, says sustainability has been core to the Lidl business model for many years.

“For us, the strategy harnesses our mission, as a business it ensures that we have future value creation and drives our responsibility to society and the communities in which we operate. When you consider the number of stores we have, we have a unique opportunity to positively impact each of the communities,” he explains.

“We recognise the demand we place on agricultural resources and supply chains, as well as our own impact on our environment through our operations and, more broadly, the work we do with our suppliers.”

Climate is at the forefront for Lidl, affirms Keogh; they’ve recently completed a carbon footprinting exercise and have signed up to the Business in the Community Low Carbon Pledge.

Energy usage is also a key focus. All Lidl stores are powered by 100 per cent green electricity, while they were the first to introduce electric vehicle charging points for customers. They’ve now made the installation of solar photo-voltaic (PV) and electric vehicle charging points as standard for any new stores, rebuilds and modifications, explains Keogh.

“Today we have the largest array of solar PV panels in the country and by the end of 2020, we will have invested almost €4 million in solar panel infrastructure across their store and distribution centre network.”

This year, the Lidl Newbridge regional distribution centre became the first distribution centre in Ireland to be awarded with BREEAM excellence certification – the world’s leading sustainability assessment for buildings.

Plastic reduction targets

Having achieved zero waste to landfill in 2018, Lidl has also committed to ambitious plastic reduction targets. Keogh says that by 2022 the retailer will reduce the volume of plastic packaging by 20 per cent, and by 2025, 100 per cent of its own-brand packaging will be widely recyclable, reusable, or renewable while 50 per cent of materials used in their own-brand packaging will come from recycled materials.

Lidl is also the first retailer to introduce FSC-certified paper packaging for its premium beef range using 75 per cent less plastic per product. These products will also be delivered using new biogas-fuelled trucks, which emit 20 per cent less emissions than a diesel-powered truck.

“We have worked very hard on this. Part of this involves successfully removing all unrecyclable black plastic trays from our fresh meat, poultry and cured meats, converting almost 500 tonnes of plastic into fully recyclable packaging.

“We are doing this for our customers – in 2019, we were also Ireland’s first retailer to introduce in-store recycling stations for customers to facilitate the collection of packaging materials for customers,” says Keogh.

Food waste is one area that supermarkets have attempted to tackle in recent years and Lidl is no different. According to Keogh, more than two million meals have been redistributed to more than 330 local charity and community groups through Food Cloud (the social enterprise that connects businesses with surplus food to charities) since 2016, and earlier this year Lidl donated more than €50,000 worth of non-surplus stock to Food Cloud.

“We have also overseen the introduction of Waste Not, which sees up to 90 per cent price reductions on a range of fresh chilled food products on reaching their best before date but are still perfectly fine to eat,” he adds.

And their efforts go far beyond the car park. In 2020 Lidl committed to the Woodland Environment Fund (WEF) leading them to plant 82,000 native species of trees across Ireland in 2020. Keogh says: "This initiative will help absorb approximately 12,500 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere and to complement the landscape as a protected native woodland."