Inside ALDI’s Plan to Reduce Plastic by 25% by 2025

Furthermore, the grocer has pledged to reduce its plastic packaging by 25 percent, and have all recyclable plastics by 2025. The supermarket has reduced its plastics across its fresh fruit produce by ten percent in the span of a year.

“Australian grocery buyers are informed and want to be able to make conscious purchasing decisions,” said Daniel Baker, the Director of Corporate Responsibility. He explained that shoppers may have seen a few small changes to the way they shop in-store, but these small changes can snowball into ‘big differences’.

“The next few years will see us continue to remove plastics from our range and by 2025 all remaining packaging will be either recyclable, reusable or compostable,” he said.

According to the Australian Plastics Recycling Survey (2018-2019), Australians currently consumes about 3.5 million tonnes of plastic each year. One million tonnes of this are made up of single-use plastic.

The supermarket explained that ‘almost all’ of ALDI’s apparel range is packaged in cardboard, which was once sold in plastic bags. The small changes include the removal of the back label from some milk bottles and the possible introduction of recyclable cardboard bread tags and home computable strawberry punnets.

ALDI is a part of the 2025 National Packaging Targets, and while the industry has a “huge task ahead of [them]” to achieve this goal, the supermarket is stepping up to address the issue.

“…it is fantastic to see ALDI step up to address this challenge through implementing solutions to reduce and improve the recyclability of packaging within their supply chain,” said Brooke Donnelly, Chief Executive Officer of The Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO). “ALDI is a founding member of the ANZPAC Plastics Pact and a supporting partner of the Australian Dairy Sustainable Packaging Roadmap, both of which are industry-leading actions that bring together industry stakeholders to take action to create a circular economy for plastics.”

By 2025, ALDI aims to send zero waste into landfills, and also has a goal to achieve zero food waste sent to landfills by 2023. The company also recently announced it is ‘100 percent powered with renewable electricity’.

“ALDI has already removed a number of unnecessary and problematic plastics from its range, last year swapping out single-use plastic tableware, saving 322 tonnes of plastic from landfill, as well as replacing plastic cotton buds with a paper-stemmed version, avoiding over 357 million plastic stems from ending up in landfill each year,” said Baker.

Ready to Tackle Sustainability Head On? 

Power Retail has partnered with The Purpose Agents to create the Power Retail Sustainability Index, to drive awareness and encourage sustainable practices throughout the entire retail industry.

The Power Retail Sustainability Index consists of a questionnaire, derived from the triple bottom line theory, whereby companies should be working toward achieving positive results with regard to three bottom lines:

Profit: The traditional measure of corporate success

People: The measure of social responsibility when doing business

Planet: The measure of environmental responsibility when doing business

The 28-question benchmarking survey opens the opportunity for retailers to thoroughly assess and discuss their social responsibility and sustainability initiatives. This will be done across three topic areas – Company Ethos; Business Operations and Value Chain; and Business as an Agent of Change.

Responses to each question are rated on a scale from one to five. Scores will be tallied to determine the ranking on the Sustainability Index, and Power Retail will revisit these rankings continuously to chart the movement of sustainable practices in e-commerce.

So, does your business deserve recognition for its sustainable practices? If you think your company works towards a positive impact, this is your moment to recognise your hard work. To take part in the Power Retail Sustainability Index, submit your company’s practices today.

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