Supermarkets switching to greener power
Tesco, the UK’s biggest supermarket chain, has announced a new “Good Neighbour” policy and will spend over £100 million on green power and other initiative, the UK’s Guardian is reporting in an article headlined Tesco plans to be green and a good neighbour.
The main plank of the community plan is a £100m environmental fund, which was unveiled last month. It includes plans to power stores with wind turbines, solar panels and geothermal power and to introduce gasification, which produces energy from waste food.
Tesco also plans to increase its recycling facilities and from September this year all its carrier bags will be biodegradable. It also plans clearer labelling, especially on its own-brand foods, and pledged more promotions for healthier foods.
Tesco’s main rival in the UK, Sainsburys, has also announced plans of their own according to the Guardian Blog, in a piece headlined ‘Green war’ hots up.
Some 347 of Sainsbury’s stores are to be equipped with new recycling units that will take normal household waste, plastics, clothes and other products and will be lit with solar power.
I’m assuming that’s the stores that will be lit with solar power, not the recycling units. An astute reader of the Guardian blog made the following point:
These initiatives are only a start. Supermarkets, like almost all other companies, need to consider the impact that the entire production/consumption process, from first supplier to end user, has on the environment.
Indeed we’d love to see carbon emission levels for each product on the labels. Ideally you could wander into a shop and choose to buy products that have had their carbon emissions neutralised at each stage in the production and distribution process. I’d pay more for CO2Free toothpaste, much like I currently choose to pay a little more for organic, herbal toothpaste now. — DS
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