Sustainability Report 2009 - The Co-operative

Yes
88%
No
12%
InSight customer feedback
Chip and pin terminal survey of The Co-operative Food customers,
conducted 25–31 January and 30 August–5 September 2009 (page 111).
Yes
No
Question: ‘I support marine nature reserves to protect UK sea life’
(total responses: 649,327)
0 20 40 60 80 100
19%
In November 2009, the Marine Act received Royal Assent and
became law. Campaign successes included: the introduction of
a ‘duty’ on Government to designate MCZs, with accompanying
guidance stating that designation must contribute to an
‘ecologically coherent network by 2012’; the offence of damaging
an MCZ being amended to include reckless damage; a power to
enable Government to remove the sea fishing defence loophole
after the EU Common Fisheries Policy has been revised; and
assurances that revised guidance will include a strengthened
commitment to introducing Highly Protected Marine Reserves as
part of the MCZ network.
Deforestation
World forests are disappearing at the rate of one acre per second.
Of these, tropical forests are the most ecologically rich; home
to at least 70% of the world’s plants and animals. In 2007, in
response to the continued threat of massive tropical deforestation,
The Co-operative Bank sponsored the RSPB report ‘Tropical
Forests and Climate Change’, which highlighted the link between
avoided deforestation and both the preservation of biodiversity
and avoidance of dangerous climate change. Following the
report, in early 2009, The Co-operative committed £20,000 to
support research by the RSPB into addressing deforestation in
Sierra Leone. The project has initiated a review of forestry and
wildlife laws to support sustainable financing, carbon trading and
conservation, and helped establish a 200km 2 ‘Transboundary
Peace Park’ between Sierra Leone and Liberia 39 . The project will
initiate a pilot carbon project in the Gola Forest and surrounding
community forests within Sierra Leone. The Co-operative’s wider
approach to climate change, including avoided deforestation, is
further described on pages 57–68.
Read more in this Report
• The Co-operative Food Pesticide Policy (page 83).
• Organic protein and dairy products (pages 31–34).
• Traditional animal breeds (pages 31–33).
• Climate change and deforestation (pages 57–68).
• Plan Bee: campaign to highlight the decline of the honeybee
– prohibited pesticides (page 84).
Accompanying notes
1 WWF (2008) 2010 and beyond – Rising to
the Biodiversity Challenge.
2 Natural England (2010) NE233 – Lost Life:
England’s lost and threatened species.
3 Birdlife International (2007) Wellbeing
Through Wildlife in the EU.
4 Canned red salmon (Alaskan only) 105g,
213g, 418g; canned pink salmon (Alaskan
only) 105g, 213g, 418g; frozen Healthy
Living salmon in watercress sauce
(Pacific); mini classic fish pie (hoki); salmon
and cucumber sandwich; ready-to-eat
81%
peppered smoked mackerel (not labelled
MSC-certified); ready-to-eat smoked
mackerel (not labelled MSC-certified);
smoked kippers (not labelled MSCcertified);
frozen salmon fillets; frozen hake
Provençal; Alaskan pollock fishcakes; hoki
in parsley sauce; hake Provençal; and
hake fillets.
5 Further information on The Co-operative
Food’s guide to the responsible sourcing of
fish is available at www.co-operative.coop/
food/food-and-drink/food/own-brand-fish
6 The Earth Island Institute monitors this
claim. www.earthisland.org
7 Drift nets are kept at, or below, the surface
of the sea by numerous floats, and drift
with the current. They may be used close
to the seabed (eg, shrimp drift net) or at
the surface (eg, herring drift net), usually
across the path of migrating fish schools.
Fish strike the net and become entangled.
8 The tuna/dolphin controversy centres on
the Eastern Tropical Pacific fishery where,
unusually, schools of large yellowfin tuna
associate with dolphins. In a practice
that began in the 1950s, purse seiners
A Strategy for England.
0 20 40 60 80 100
maximise their catches of yellowfin tuna by
chasing and setting their nets on herds of
dolphins. This practice has resulted in very
high numbers of dolphin deaths.
9 The Co-operative Food’s sustainable fish
sourcing policy requires cod to be linecaught
from specific areas, such as Iceland
or Norway, where stocks are deemed to be
acceptable and well managed.
10 Data has not been verified by WWF-FTN.
11 FSC certification includes FSC mixedsource
certification, which requires a
timber product to contain a minimum
of 50% FSC-certified material and the
remaining materials to be from
controlled sources.
12 http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/
gftn_winter_newsletter_final.pdf
13 FSC mixed source 50% SW-COC-003477.
14 The majority of which are made using
mahogany or American red oak.
15 Wood-grain effect cardboard contains 25%
recycled content; white cardboard contains
63% recycled content.
16 www.greenpeace.org.uk/forests/palm-oil
17 C Nellemann, L Miles, BP Kaltenborn, M
Virtue and H Ahlenius (Eds) (2007) The
last stand of the orangutan – State of
emergency: Illegal logging, fire and palm
oil in Indonesia’s national parks, United
Nations Environment Programme.
18 The product composition document
requests that, for all new products and
re-labelling of existing products, suppliers
consider other types of oils, ideally from
non-tropical sources before palm oil, in the
formulation of a product, where it does not
have an impact on flavour or functionality
of the final product. Some products may
be allowed to use palm oil to fry strictly
on permission of the Technical Manager,
although, in these cases, sustainable palm
oil will be a requirement.
19 Fifth out of nine UK food retailers.
20 www.defra.gov.uk
21 Includes bagged compost and compost for
household and bedding plants.
22 www.jncc.gov.uk/default.aspxpage=2001
23 According to the Peak District fact sheet,
produced by the Peak District National
Park Authority, it is estimated that 18–22
million day visits, and 2.5 million overnight
stays are made every year (from GBA/HETB
2001). www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/tourism.pdf
24 Sphagnum moss is the fundamental
building block of the world’s peatlands.
It creates waterlogged anaerobic, acidic
conditions that prevent micro-organisms
from growing easily and breaking down
dead vegetation. This allows plant remains
to accumulate at a faster rate than they
decompose, thus forming peat.
25 The degradation of Sphagnum moss, as a
result of 250 years of industrial pollution,
has resulted in the erosion of blanket peat.
The erosion of blanket peat leads to the
drying out and exposure of peat.
26 The amount of set-aside was significantly
reduced in 2009 to 25 hectares. Set-aside
was introduced as part of the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform in 1992. A
minimum of 15% set-aside was enforced
on all crop growers; this then dropped to
10% in 2000, and, due to rises in grain
prices, was removed entirely for the harvest
of 2008. For this reason, The Co-operative
Farms chose to farm some of the land that
had previously been set aside.
27 www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/
farming/funding/es/default.aspx
28 The decrease in the hectarage of
land managed under the Entry Level
Stewardship Scheme is due to the sale in
2008 of land that was previously managed
under the scheme.
29 This figure varied throughout 2009 as a
result of land sales.
30 Defra (2009) Safeguarding our Soils:
31 Eight plots of fallow land, measuring 6m
wide by 30m long, will be used on each
site for the trial.
32 Species are classified as ‘vulnerable’ by
the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
that face a high risk of extinction in the
wild in the medium-term future.
33 BP, Cadbury, Home Retail Group, Next
Retail, Reckitt Benckiser, Marks & Spencer,
Whitbread and Tesco.
34 Over £7.6m has been raised since 1989.
35 www.co-operative.coop/planbee
36 www.vanishingbees.co.uk
37 www.pif-paf.co.uk/shows.php
38 www.marinereservesnow.org.uk
39 www.birdlife.org/news/news/2009/05/
peace_park_west_africa.html
Ecological sustainability Climate change Waste and packaging Biodiversity Persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals
The Co-operative Group Sustainability Report 2009 81