Asda makes net-zero carbon emissions pledge by 2040, opens new sustainability store

Asda announced it will reach net-zero carbon emissions and halve its waste by 2040 while it also started a trial sustainability store. It is the second major UK supermarket to make the pledge after Sainsbury’s. READ: Asda snapped up by billionaire Issa brothers, TDR Capital for £6.8bn On Tuesday, Asda launched its new sustainability trial store in Leeds to help shoppers reduce, reuse and recycle more easily. Products include a selection of different Kellogg’s cereals, PG Tips tea bags, Quaker Oats, Lavazza and Taylors of Harrogate coffee beans, Vimto cordial and Asda’s own brand rice and pasta and there will be 15 refill stations of household staples. It is expected to save 1mln of plastic per year and if successful it will be rolled out to more locations in 2021. The supermarket has also launched ‘Greener at Asda Price’, a national price promise that loose and unwrapped products will not cost more than wrapped equivalents. The chain, which was recently bought by billionaire Issa brothers and private equity firm TDR Capital for £6.8bn from owner Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT), also committed to having “a net regenerative impact on nature” no later than 2050. “We hope that this store is the first of many; we need to see so much more of this from across the supermarket sector. UK consumers want to ditch plastic,” said Nina Schrank, lead plastics campaigner at Greenpeace UK. “The supermarket sector needs to listen to its customers and shift to plastic-free groceries and reuse and refill options both in-store and throughout their online delivery operations.”