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CO-OPERATIVE Group is concerned by waste

4. Environment

Waste management

Context

Each year, the UK produces 70 million tons of Industrial and Commercial (I&C) waste. The retail sector plays a great role in it, generating some 13 million tons.

Objectives

-  Reducing waste both inside the company and in terms of packaging passed on to its customers
- Increasing re-use and recycling rates
- Improving the degradability and biodegradability of waste
- Financing the provision to more sustainable waste management options.

APPROACH

In 2006, the following packaging reduction projects were initiated:
- Development of the UK’s first sub-300g 70cl spirits bottle, a 15% reduction in weight on the previous bottle, saving of 20 tonnes of glass waste per annum,
- Reduction in the thickness of salad pack bags (saving of 8 tonnes per annum),
- Transference of own-brand porridge oats from boxes to plastic bags, saving a ton of packaging per annum.

Subsequently, The Co-operative Food has announced a target to reduce own-brand primary packaging.
- Reducing the weight of wine, spirits and olive oil glass bottles, of plastic milk bottles,
- Reducing the size of cereal boxes to a smaller pack format,
- Removing unnecessary packaging from fresh produce.

In 2006, CFS donated 3,690 items of IT equipment including 3,467 monitors and 115 PCs to charities.The Co-operative Food has worked to make packaging more degradable. Research shows that, whilst degradable packaging is still fossil fuel-based, it will degrade after four years to carboxylic acids that can be readily bioassimilated. Therefore, the Co-operative Food launched the UK’s first Fairtrade supermarket cotton carrier bag in 2007 which would divert 125 tons of plastic from landfill each year. The group ensures that products sold contain a high recycled content. Recycled materials (defined as 50% recycled content or more) are used in three packaging lines: tissues, washing powder and certain bag-in-box cereals.The Co-operative Food has worked with Oxfam since 2004 to help its customers recycle mobile phones and inkjet cartridges. Customers collect Freepost recycling bags, enabling them to post their old equipment.

CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY PERFORMANCE

- Mobilization and motivation of all teams for a project that is federative and loaded with meaning
- Corporate image towards consumers and pride to belong to the company.

Benefits

- Energy consumption in the Group increased by 1% in 2006 compared with 2005,
- Reduction of CO2 emission by 20% compared with 2005 and by 89% compared with 2003,
- In 2006, 98% of the electricity supplied to the Group (some 743GWh) was powered from renewable.

Mise à jour le 30/05/2016

Creative Commons Attribution This work by Réseau Alliances – World Forum Lille is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.