Cheshunt, England, UK: Tesco’s environmental programme was recognised on Monday night, when it won the Barclays Environmental Leadership Award at the Business in the Community Awards for Excellence 2008.
This prestigious award recognises companies that have demonstrated leadership and improved impact by embedding environmental strategy into core business processes. Tesco says that it rewards the hard work that the supermarket has done in recent years to develop a sustainable business approach which also helps its customers go green too.
In 2006 Tesco announced a string of long-term, stretching targets aimed at minimising its environmental impact, and has made strong progress since. The most ambitious of these targets under the company's community plan, is to halve its carbon footprint by 2020.
Other targets include recycling 80% of store waste by 2010 and doubling the amount of recycling done by customers wherever an automated unit is installed.
In its recent Corporate Responsibility Review, Tesco reported that the carbon intensity of its global business had dropped by almost 5% during 2007. In the UK, new stores built last year created a fifth less carbon than those built in 2006, according to the company.
Gary Hoffman, Group Vice Chairman of Barclays who judged the Barclays Environmental Leadership Award, said:
"Instead of being overwhelmed by the challenge, Tesco is using its size and influence in the marketplace to improve environmental impact on a huge scale.”
The award quickly follows the company winning the Motor Transport Award for Low Carbon and Efficiency last week which Tesco says is an acknowledgment of the supermarket’s pioneering work to reduce the carbon footprint of its distribution network.