Dear Readers,
Is it possible to maintain something while constantly progressing? Can we zoom in on our own customers and still contribute to a global transformation process that goes beyond these relationships? Does focusing on the core business allow climate protection?
We say: Yes! Focusing on our customers and our core business drives us and our company forward – and it includes protecting resources and the climate.
In this progress report, we show how we are adapting our assortment to the demands and requirements of our customers. We show how our core business with its focus on food is directly influenced by the climate and its development.
With the work in the focus areas of our sustainability strategy, we contribute to making our impact on resources, climate and society as positive as possible. The Sustainability Agenda 2030 and the principles of the United Nations Global Compact provide us with the global framework for this.
2020 and 2021 were very challenging years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which left significant traces throughout the whole value chain. But the pandemic has also highlighted a development in gastronomy towards more regionality, more health, more choice, less plastic and better packaging.
2021 has brought us back to restaurants, bars and cafés – we are enjoying again. Behind the scenes, we at METRO are working to offer our 17 million customers a growing, more sustainable assortment that helps them respond to their customers’ changing needs. Our range of regional items is growing steadily. Since 2018, we are also offering organic products under own brand. Among the most successful product launches in 2021 is METRO Chef Veggie, a curated selection of plant-based meat alternatives for beef and poultry specialties developed together with chefs. And with our work on traceability, we are doing everything we can to ensure that meat and fish products can be traced back to their origin from the plate in the restaurant.
We are aware of our responsibility, but also of our opportunities: our product range is a great lever to have a sustainable positive impact on resources, people and the environment – along the entire value chain from producer to restaurateur. We accept the responsibility for the challenges associated with this, because in our eyes we need more cooperation than ever before in order to achieve a goal that is elementary for all of us, but above all for future generations: to limit global warming and to secure valuable resources.
Food and climate are complexly interwoven. At METRO, we are therefore doing everything we can to set a good example and initiate change across our supply chains. That’s why our purchasing policies include ambitious sustainability targets. Therefore, we are fighting food waste on all fronts and this is why we will invest 1.45 billion euros in our own global business operations to become climate neutral in our own business operations by 2040. The necessary cooperation to achieve this starts in our own company and carries through to our cooperation with our business partners and on to our customers.
It has rarely been so clear: we must set the course for the future today. We can only grow our quality of life if we ambitiously drive change now. As a company, we reach over 17 million customers and these billions of people who eat, order, shop with them. The more we embed sustainability in our core business, the greater the effect we achieve. This is the core of #METROSustainable – knowing our leverage, we implement sustainability with a focus on our customers and our core business.
Let us show you how we are progressing with this report: Many courses have already been set, but at the same time there is still a lot of work ahead of us – and our motivation is right: