Iceland joins forces with UK’s leading campaigners for transparency on plastic packaging

Iceland has joined forces with Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, A Plastic Planet and Surfers Against Sewage to call for the retail and wider business sector to commit to enhanced transparency in reporting on plastic consumption.

The Government is also being called on to enforce mandatory reporting on plastic packaging and plastic pollution reduction targets within forthcoming legislation to ensure that real progress is being delivered.

Iceland has published its own plastic footprint, amounting to over 32,000 tonnes across its UK and international operations in 2019, and will continue to publish on an annual basis.

The call for transparency is also supported by the Environmental Investigation Agency, which together with Greenpeace produces an annual survey on plastic usage by supermarkets, and by Keep Britain Tidy and international development charity Tearfund.

When Iceland made its commitment on own label plastic packaging in 2018, it promised to provide regular updates to its customers along its journey, and it is now once again leading the way by proactively publishing its full plastic footprint.

Since Iceland made its commitment to eliminate all plastic packaging from its own label products by the end of 2023, it has made significant progress in reducing the plastic it uses. In total it had removed 3,794 tonnes out of the 13,000 tonnes the business was using in January 2018 by the end of 2019 – equating to a 29% reduction.

The figures released include Iceland’s primary packaging along with the secondary and tertiary packaging used to deliver food to its stores, alongside the packaging for the brands it sells, with figures reported separately for its UK and international businesses. They reveal that Iceland’s total plastic packaging footprint for its UK and international operations is over 32,000 tonnes and includes more than 1.8 billion items of packaging and almost 93 million plastic bottles.

Richard Walker, Managing Director of Iceland, said: “Our message is clear. Without transparency, and government enforced reduction targets, we will not be able to judge whether business actions are delivering real progress. That is why today Iceland is calling on retailers and other businesses to step up and commit to publishing their total plastic packaging transparently, including both own label and branded products. For several years now, businesses have been using incomplete information to represent the scale of their plastic packaging, their commitments to change, and the progress being made. We will all be better served by a more accurate and transparent picture on this issue.

“Our figures show that two thirds of the plastic packaging we sell relates to brands rather than own label. When we made our commitment to eliminate plastic from our own label products by the end of 2023, we were aware that we would have to take further steps to lead the way in the fight against the scourge of plastic. That is why as well as calling on fellow retailers, businesses and the Government, we are also publishing our first plastic packaging footprint to reflect both our impact and the challenge that lies ahead. We can only solve this crisis by working together.”

Greenpeace UK plastic campaigner Nina Schrank said: “There’s nothing like transparency about a problem to force companies to tackle it, and that’s true of throwaway plastic too. Iceland has made a bold and brave move by publishing their plastic data, and we urge other retailers to follow suit. If UK supermarkets are underreporting their packaging, ocean plastic pollution could be far worse than we thought and wildlife could be even more at risk.”