The supermarkets you and I shop at are some of the most wasteful businesses around. Every day they throw away tons of good food, and cause plastics by the truckload to end up in our oceans where turtles and whales pay the ultimate price.
We can still save the planet, but only if corporations stop operating as if there were two or three more Earths to spare!
Lidl is one of the largest supermarkets in the world, and it has the power to get producers of food, clothing, and even electronics to take responsibility for the impact they're having on our planet. We know that once Lidl moves, its competitors will have to follow -- but we need you to take action first so Lidl knows you find this important.
Call on Lidl to replace inefficient products with better ones, and adopt an ambitious resource efficiency policy.
We commissioned Germany's prestigious Wuppertal Institute to conduct research for our new resource efficiency report. Our report, published today, shows that supermarkets are absolutely key to this issue.
So we need to start with a supermarket giant like Lidl.
We want Lidl to to stop selling products that are wasteful and instead go for the better alternatives, such as concentrated detergent instead of huge boxes of washing powder. This way Lidl could save 20% of materials and protect our planet's precious resources.
Supermarkets know we lead busy lives. When you're going to the supermarket, you should trust that the supermarket has done its best to be responsible.
Thanks to consumer pressure, supermarkets in France are now obliged to donate unused food to charity instead of dumping it. But we don't want to wait for government action: we want Lidl to be a first-mover and adopt a sustainable and responsible policy that cuts out inefficient products from its shelves.
The reality is clear. If we continue to consume our resources as we do now, we would soon need three to five Earths to sustain us.
If we do not cut back on packaging, our oceans will soon contain more plastic than fish.
But it's not all bad news. We can do something about this! Last year Greenpeace pressure convinced Lidl to make a detailed action plan to eliminate hazardous chemicals from its textile production. The Living Wage Foundation recently convinced the company to pay a living wage to all its UK staff. We know that Lidl is a mountain that can be moved with public pressure and smart campaigning.
But we need your help to make it happen. Are you in?
More information
More plastic than fish in the sea by 2050, says Ellen MacArthur
Guardian. 1 January 2016.
Guardian. 1 January 2016.