‘As Britain burns, it’s time for retailers to turn up the heat on the climate crisis’

Forty degrees. That is the level hit by the mercury in Lincolnshire on Tuesday as the UK recorded its hottest ever day – a level that would have been “virtually impossible without human-based climate change”, climate science lecturer Dr Friederike Otto said.  

Scenes of wildfires, burning buildings, melted roads, abandoned schools and train-track blazes filled newspaper pages and social media feeds as Britain, quite literally, burned.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said it was the busiest day for London’s firefighters since the Second World War. The number of calls rose fivefold compared with a normal “busy” day, reaching 2,600. 

“Neither of the two remaining contenders in the Conservative leadership contest have given the climate crisis anything like the focus it demands”

Network Rail engineers painted some train tracks white in a desperate attempt to keep them cooler. In a sad way, it offers a perfect metaphor for the UK government’s handling of the climate crisis – glossing over the burning issues and refusing to tackle them with the urgency the country and the planet desperately need.

Although Boris Johnson has committed to net-zero carbon by 2050, a move that should be lauded, the High Court ruled this week that his strategy was unlawful since it fails to set out how that target will be met. The court also found that parliament – and the public – were effectively kept in the dark about the failure to meet a key emissions target.  

What hope is there of that laissez-faire attitude changing under a new prime minister in September? None of the nine initial contenders for the Tory leadership attended a climate emergency briefing hosted by Sir Patrick Vallance last week – a damning indictment of how the UK’s ruling party is failing to prioritise the biggest threat to humankind. 

Indeed, neither of the two remaining contenders in the Conservative leadership contest – Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss – have given the climate crisis anything like the focus it demands in their campaigning so far.

In fact, the noises from both have been quite the opposite. Sunak insisted that progress on net-zero goals should not be “too hard and too fast” – and has since been accused of “economic illiteracy” by opposition parties after pledging to block onshore wind farms if he becomes prime minister. Truss, meanwhile, has said sustainability measures should not harm people or businesses.

If Tuesday’s scenes of wildfires in Wennington, Dartford and Lickey Hills did not set alarm bells ringing on the right wing of the Conservative Party, what will? 

Test and learn – and fast

In the absence of true leadership from Number 10, retailers must be prepared to take up the mantle and use this week’s heatwave as a catalyst to drive quicker change and fast-track the education of colleagues and customers. 

The British Retail Consortium, for its part, is doing just that. Its Climate Action Roadmap aims to help retailers deliver net zero in their own operations and the products they sell by 2040.

The BRC is developing a survey for its 80 signatories to track progress against 10 interim targets for 2025, which include using LED lighting in all new buildings, collecting greenhouse gas performance data from logistics partners, educating employees, reporting progress on tackling deforestation and increasing plant-based food sales. 

“Having scorched in this week’s tinderbox, retailers should not be afraid to go ‘too hard and too fast’”

But retailers must be bolder. They must be innovative and open-minded when implementing new ideas. They must be prepared to live by the age-old retail mantra by testing, learning and failing fast – and using those experiences to create better solutions. As former Co-op chief executive Steve Murrells urged at Retail Week Live last October, they must ditch competition for collaboration, coming together as an industry to find “joined-up solutions for joined-up problems”.

Tesco and its boss Ken Murphy are embracing that mindset. The grocer launched a reusable packaging pilot with Loop last year – a trial it scrapped six weeks ago – that allowed customers to buy items like pasta and rice in reusable metal and glass jars and bottles. Murphy admitted last October that he was “not sure that Loop will be the answer” but insisted retailers “need to be very open-minded” about new ideas and give them “every chance of success”.  

Retailers, now more than ever, have to adopt that same approach. Having scorched in this week’s tinderbox, they should not be afraid to go “too hard and too fast” in the way Sunak warns against – particularly, at a time when data from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy suggests 84% of consumers are concerned about the climate crisis.

Retail’s difficult decisions

Iceland and its managing director Richard Walker have been among the boldest and most vocal in their efforts to drive sustainable initiatives. Walker has openly called himself a “hypocrite” for failing to deliver on a pledge to remove plastic packaging from its shelves by next year – perhaps suggesting Iceland might have gone “too fast” and failed to keep pace.

Nonetheless, the business has made good progress on Walker’s “profit with purpose” goals, and he says: “We are trying to do good where we can and I don’t think that is a bad plan.”

But could it, and other grocery businesses, be doing even more to educate customers? In March, Iceland reneged on its pledge to remove palm oil from its own-brand products, reverting back to the ingredient after the price of the main alternative – sunflower oil – surged 1,000% as a result of the war in Ukraine.

“How strong a lesson would empty freezers have been for consumers about the climate crisis and the impact that a failure to address it could have on their daily routines?”

The alternative to using palm oil, Walker wrote at the time, was “to clear our freezers and shelves of a wide range of staples including frozen chips and other potato products”.

What if Iceland had allowed that to happen, if only for a few weeks, and communicated the reasons why to customers? How strong a lesson would empty freezers have been for consumers about the climate crisis and the impact that a failure to address certain issues could have on their daily routines and weekly shopping baskets? 

Highlighting the fact that Iceland did not choose that path is not intended as a criticism – it would have made no commercial sense to remove such items when there was a simple solution to maintain availability and choice for customers.

But there will come a time when retailers will need to genuinely prioritise the planet over profit by making difficult commercial decisions, sacrificing earnings in the present to preserve the Earth in the future.

News flash: that time is now.

• Never miss a story – sign up to Retail Week’s breaking news alerts