Sainsbury Reports on CR as part of Quarterly Financial Updates

UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s says it will start reporting progress on its corporate responsibility (CR) initiatives, together with its quarterly financial updates. The first quarterly CR update was issued with the company’s third quarter results last week.

In 2008, Timberland began releasing quarterly CSR data. Here’s a column from Alex Hausman, Timberland’s CSR reporting manager at the time, on the company’s journey to quarterly reporting.

According to the quarterly CR report, Sainsbury’s has been recognized by several organizations for its commitment to sustainability. As an example, the UK retailer was rated number 1 out of 59 global retailers in the World Wildlife Foundation Sustainable Palm Oil Buyers Scorecard. Sainsbury’s reports it was the first retailer to buy sustainable palm oil last year, and it is committed to only using sustainable palm oil in its own brand products by 2014.

The supermarket chain received an “A rating” in Consumer Focus’ “Green to the Core?” survey in November 2009, which assesses supermarkets’ performance on making green shopping easier.

Sainsbury’s is also recognized as the UK’s largest retailer of Fairtrade goods and leading major retailer in the Marine Conservation Society’s retailer survey.

Sainsbury’s has pledged to switch all its fridges to CO2 refrigeration technology in all stores by 2030 and has already earmarked 135 stores for conversion by 2014, which is expected to cut the company’s carbon footprint by about one third, according to the company.

Other food retailers are also adopting the CO2 refrigeration technology to help limit the use of HCFC refrigerants.

The retailer will launch a new campaign “make the difference day — love your leftovers” on January 23rd, and will provide customers with free plastic food containers, helping to make it easier for people to use leftover food.

In other supermarket sustainability news, Foodtown supermarket in the U.S. is progressing in its solar installations.

Norkus Enterprises, operator of seven Foodtown supermarkets, has completed the fourth of six installations of Solyndra solar photovoltaic rooftop systems, reports Supermarket News.

The systems, consisting of approximately 2,700 solar panels, generate more than 600,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, while eliminating more than 820,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions annually, according to the article.