The Co-operative Group has smashed its carbon emissions reduction target of 35 per cent by 2017, meeting it instead this year, reports GreenWise.
The massive cut in emissions puts the Co-operative Group well ahead of any other UK business in terms of meeting such a progressive policy in such a short space of time.
The reduction is one of a number of environmental targets to have been achieved ahead of schedule by the UK’s biggest mutual, which is owned by six million customers.
The company made a huge 15 per cent cut in absolute emissions in 2011, from a 2006 baseline – meaning it has met its target five years before schedule.
"We were already at 20 per cent and we were expecting a two to four per cent cut a year," Sustainable Development manager Chris Shearlock said. The reduction was achieved mainly through investments in more efficient refrigeration and plugging fridge gas leaks across the group's foodstores, he said.
Other key environmental achievements announced today include cutting water consumption by 20 per cent and lending £700 million to green energy projects in the last 12 months.
The group will also have certified 70 per cent of its developing world products Fairtrade by next month – putting it three quarters of the way towards its target of certifying 90 per cent by 2020.
The Co-operative Group, which employs more than 106,000 people and has an annual turnover of more than £13 billion, launched its first operational ethical plan in February 2011, hailing it the most radical sustainable programme in UK corporate history. A year later, its commitment to environmental efficiency initiatives are saving the company £40 million a year.
Other milestones achieved in the last year include getting a million new customer members to join the group, helping to set up 700 cooperative enterprises and supporting community initiatives in the UK every hour of every day.
"Despite the economic downturn we have remained true to our pledge to show the way on corporate responsibility," said group chief executive Peter Marks said. "The one million new members we now have bears testimony to the continued support we have had from our customers."
This year, the Co-operative Group is setting the bar even higher, pledging to meet 53 commitments across environmental, social and community involvement.
These include reducing emissions by 50 per cent by 2020, and water consumption by 30 per cent by 2014.
The group also said it will invest £17 million in support of co-operative development and provide 30,000 loans to entrepreneurs in the developing world by the year-end.
A new campaign will also be launched with Oxfam to champion smallholder farmers and co-operatives, and the role they can play in feeding the world sustainably.
"Our new partnership with Oxfam is particularly timely given it’s the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives," said Marks. "Smallholder farmers and co-operatives already help feed a third of the world, with a little more help they can help us rise to the challenge of how to feed sustainably the extra two billion that will be on the planet by 2050."
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