Tesco and WWF launch ground-breaking measure to map environmental impact of food production

Tesco is teaming up with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to map the environmental impact of food production in what is said to be a “ground-breaking measure” that will track some samples of regularly purchased products. The partnership between the retailer and WWF calls on the food industry to provide consumers and stakeholders with consistent sustainability data to understand the effects of some of the UK’s most popular foods have on the environment.

The Tesco and WWF Sustainable Basket Metric will track the environmental impact of some products – such as bananas, salad tomatoes, clementines, “Easy peeler,” Maris piper potatoes, blueberries, iceberg lettuce, chicken, eggs, salmon, steak mince as well as a range of packaged foods – against key sustainability criteria, including climate change, deforestation, as well as food and packaging waste.

Tesco and WWF will run an initial full assessment against the metric early next year and publish the results. The partnership will also then be able to confirm a date by which it believes the target of halving the impact of the average UK shopping basket can be reached, with 2030 set as a potential ambition.

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