Trying to compare supermarket chains' green policies is like trying to figure out which mobile phone package gives the best value. The differences between retailers' strategies on green issues make it difficult to choose the most environmentally friendly.
Take water consumption, for example. One multiple pledges a 20% cut by 2012; another aims for a reduction of 15% by 2010; another for 15% by 2009; and another for a whopping 50% by 2009. And one says it has already reduced its consumption by 28% compared with the previous year. So many different deadlines and so many different targets. And the gap between 15% and 50% is so enormous that the credibility of either figure is questionable.
The incompatibilities make it difficult for suppliers to co-operate to help retailers to meet their self-imposed targets. Retailers gain little advantage by working alone.
Packaging is another example. One retailer proposes to cut its packaging by 25% by 2012 and another by 15% by 2010. If the one retailer's request for a 15% reduction was made before the other's demand for 25%, is a supplier to both expected to make a 40% reduction in total? Would 10% be acceptable to the second customer? Also, neither is it clear how each retailer initially measures the overall amount of packaging. The one aiming for a 25% reduction may appear superior to the one demanding a 15% cut, but how do consumers know the former hasn't started from a higher level of packaging consumption?
To make matters worse, while the retailer can choose when to implement its green policies, suppliers have to wait for their customers' requirements. And the examples above show just how different these can be. It would be much more desirable for retailers to collaborate in conjunction with suppliers to set realistic industry criteria.
Unless consumers can compare retailers' green strategies, the retailers themselves will gain little public relations benefit from their efforts. In fact, the differences between targets makes them appear, at best, arbitrary. Yet the same range of suppliers, equipment and technology is available to all, so surely the variations should not be so large?
A co-ordinated industry strategy would not only be transparent to consumers, it would also be more cost-effective. It would allow suppliers to pursue single targets rather than trying to satisfy potentially irreconcilable demands that risk being seen as different for difference's sake.
The failure to co-operate benefits nobody.
Clare Cheney is director general of the Provision Trade Federation