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Co-operative Group goes extra yard to win environment-conscious customers
Company's ethical and fair trade initiative based on detailed survey.
- By Michael Kavanagh, Financial Times
- Published: 23:42 July 7, 2009
London: Fairtrade Palestinian olive oil, 'naked' cucumbers devoid of shrinkwrap, thinner wine bottles, and solar panels on its insurance head office in Manchester are some of the ways Co-operative Group is enhancing its ethical and environmental credentials.
Many of its rivals must gauge the tricky trade-offs between the costs and benefits of enhancing customer loyalty by upping their environmental game. But the Co-operative Group at least has the advantage of knowing it is retailing - rather than preaching - to the converted.
According to Chris Shearlock, environment manager, an ethical consultation last year drew replies from 120,000 customers across the group's businesses, showing broad support for policies aimed at tackling climate change, waste, and protecting biodiversity.
"We started the year with our focus on ethical concerns and fair trading, when everyone else was talking about price," he says. "We want to compete on environmental issues: we want the environment and fair trade to be central to what people think about the Co-op."
The merger of United Co-operatives with the Co-operative Group in 2007, followed by the £1.57-billion (Dh9.3 billion) acquisition of Somerfield, completed in March this year, created a stronger fifth player in the UK grocery market, with 8 per cent market share and 3,000 stores generating annual sales above £7 billion.
That buying power has helped drive through changes in packaging designed to reduce carbon emissions and landfill.
Its sister company Co-operative Food has delivered a 9 per cent reduction in own-brand packaging by weight compared with 2006, and is on schedule to hit a 15 per cent reduction target by the end of the year.
Much emphasis has been placed on recycling paper products, while the abandonment of shrinkwrap was achieved without a consumer backlash.
Now, the group is concentrating on new bottle designs for wine and beer, says Shearlock, because glass represents 50 per cent of all packaging weight.
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