EuroCommerce, which represents the retail and wholesale sector in Europe, along with ANGED (Spain), APED (Portugal), ESEE (Greece) FCD, France Commerce (France), POHiD (Poland), and Vakcentrum (Netherlands), have pledged to become Accelerators for the Race to Zero campaign.
The groups made the announcement at The Consumer Goods Forum Sustainable Retail Summit, which is taking place in Amsterdam this week.
With this pledge, they will join the British Retail Consortium and the Australian Retail Association to drive climate action and support their member retailers in setting out their plans to help limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by 2030.
'Set Out Their Plans'
“In joining the campaign, we hope to encourage retailers and wholesalers to set out their plans to achieve necessary carbon reduction targets by 2030 to help limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees," commented Christel Delberghe, director general, EuroCommerce.
A recent report by EuroCommerce in partnership with McKinsey shows that retail and wholesale value chains represent 40% of EU emissions, however only 5% of these are in direct control of retailers and wholesalers. Collaboration with supply chain partners and our stakeholders will be key to success in the Race to Zero.”
The Race to Zero 2030 Breakthroughs: Retail Campaign was founded by retailers Best Buy, H&M Group, Ingka Group (IKEA), Kingfisher plc and Walmart, and is hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). It is backed by the United Nations High Level Climate Champions.
'Ambitious Climate Action'
According to Diane Holdorf, executive vice president, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, with this announcement, EuroCommerce and the other groups will "catalyse hundreds of European retailers to take ambitious climate action. The sector increasingly recognises the financial and operating risks posed by climate change across their supply chains and operations.
"We invite all retailers to join the UNFCCC’s Race to Zero, with retail associations like EuroCommerce playing a critical role in accelerating the retailing climate transformation."
© 2022 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.