Successful summit builds support for sustainable supermarkets

Release/Rhyddhau: 14/07/06

Contact/Cyswllt: Ceirion Rees:
029 2089 8342/ 07733280105/ ceirion.rees@wales.gov.uk 

Mick Bates AM today hailed his Green Supermarket Summit a successful first step in the campaign to make supermarkets compete to be the greenest in the land.

The summit brought together campaigners, environmentalists, small businesses, farmers unions and representatives of the four main political parties to discuss ways of working together to promote sustainable development. It follows on from the Montgomeryshire AM's Assembly debate on the issue in June where he challenged the major supermarket chains to transform themselves from Incredible Hulks in to Green Giants.

Mick said: "The point of today's summit was to find ways to bring together all the different campaigns that want to change the way supermarkets do business.  Working in isolation, each of us struggles to make any impact on these massive, multi-national retailing powerhouses. I'm confident now that following on from today's meeting we can find a way to work together to promote three central causes:

• Increasing local food sales;

• Promoting recycling and waste reduction;

• Selling the most fair trade products

"By working together I hope we will be able to find concrete ways to harness their strengths and persuade them that there is a market advantage in being the greenest in the field.

The summit was attended by WWF, Oxfam and the Women's Institute, FSB, Welsh Consumer Council, NFU, FUW, Wales Environment Link and representatives of all four parties. The group will meet again in the autumn and form a Sustainable Supermarkets Forum.

Mick Bates will continue to press the supermarkets over the summer, and has been invited to work with the Sustainable Development Commission as they look at addressing issues of sustainability raised by the dominance of supermarkets in the UK.

Notes:

Mick launched this campaign on Wednesday June 21 with his short debate - Supermarkets: Green Giants or incredible hulks? - in the Senedd Siambr.

The Green Supermarket Summit took place on Friday 14^th July 2006 at 10. 30am in Conference Room 24, National Assembly for Wales.

The summit's purpose was to "Encouraging supermarkets to compete with one another by establishing who is selling the most local food, whose recycling the most waste and who is selling the most fair trade products"

Delegates considered three central questions:

1. How do we encourage the supermarkets to publish figures showing the amount of local food sold the level of recycling undertaken and the percentage of Fair Trade products sold?

2. Do we need to set up a sustainable supermarkets forum to develop a voluntary protocol starting with local food, recycling and fair trade?

3. Could we establish an annual award for the retailer who sells the most local food, recycles the most waste and sells the most fair trade products?