Engaging our customers

Our customers’ carbon footprint is around 100 times greater than our direct carbon footprint. There is therefore a real opportunity to tackle climate change by helping our customers to make small changes that together can make a big difference.

We're committed to working with customers to lead a revolution in green consumption. We know that it has to be easy and affordable to make green choices. Here are some of the areas we are focusing on.

Education

Across a number of our markets we are helping to educate the next generation about climate change.

• In South Korea, we run our Green Leaders programme where children learn the importance of protecting our environment. We have over 30,000 ‘Green Leaders’ and aim to educate 100,000 to become Green Leaders by 2020.
• Last year over 350 teams from schools across Poland entered the Tesco for Schools eco-film competition to raise awareness of environmental issues.  The videos they made were watched and voted for by nearly 60,000 people, who selected 30 winning schools.
• In Turkey, our Tomorrow’s Footprint educational programme helps children understand the impact of climate change, and so far a total of 38,000 children have taken part.

Carbon footprinting

We have set ourselves demanding targets both to reduce carbon emissions of the products we sell by 30% by 2020, and to find ways to help customers reduce their carbon footprints by 50% by 2020. To help achieve this we have completed carbon footprint analysis of over 1,100 of our own-brand products. Understanding the carbon footprints of these products helps us to understand where greenhouse gas emissions arise, enabling us to reduce our impact on the environment. We have also used this information to carbon label over 500 products since 2008, and to provide helpful advice to our customers on how they can reduce their household carbon footprint.  

Find out more about carbon footprints of different products PDF 1MB

Incentivising green behaviour

In the UK, we give out over one billion green Clubcard points, worth over £10 million, every year to customers who reuse carrier bags, recycle aluminium cans at our automated recycling machines, recycle printer cartridges and mobile phones, choose bagless home delivery, or buy home insulation or renewable energy through Tesco Home Efficiency.

In 2011, we trialled green Clubcard points in Slovakia, offering them to customers who reused carrier bags.  The trial saved over 30 million bags, and in 2012 we decided to extend the scheme, giving green Clubcard points to customers who buy reusable bags or energy saving products.

Similar green Clubcard point schemes have also been rolled out in Poland, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea and Turkey.

Together For Trees

Tropical rainforests are being destroyed at the rate of one football pitch every four seconds. It's an issue our customers care about and we recognise our responsibility to protect our world. Together For Trees, our partnership with the RSPB, gives UK customers the opportunity to donate their green Clubcard points and Clubcard vouchers to save rainforests all over the world.  For more information, please take a look at our website.

Climate Week

In 2012, for the second year running, Tesco was the headline partner for Climate Week UK. This national event helps show people how they can take small actions to help combat climate change.  We supported Climate Week 2012 through ‘Climate Week Cuisine’ activities, sharing low carbon recipes and tips. The event is supported and endorsed by UK Prime Minister David Cameron, former UN Director General Kofi Annan and former US Vice President Al Gore.

Sustainable Consumption Institute

In 2007, Tesco committed £25 million to create the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) at the University of Manchester. The SCI is a multidisciplinary centre of global excellence, researching major national and international issues associated with sustainability and encouraging consumers to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Among its flagship projects, the SCI is focusing on understanding and changing consumer behaviour, and identifying new technologies and innovations across the supply chain. For more information, see www.sci.manchester.ac.uk.