The ALDI SOUTH Group has continued to make strong progress towards its sustainability goals in 2020. By regularly measuring our corporate responsibility performance, we are continuously validating the effectiveness of our actions to ensure that our strategic priorities continue to focus on areas, which are most material to our business and where we have the greatest impact on society and the environment.
Making sustainability affordable to our customers”, this ambitious vision is at the heart of our new International Corporate Responsibility Strategy. The ALDI SOUTH Group aims to democratise sustainable products, while tackling global challenges in terms of respecting human rights, improving resource efficiency and realising zero carbon emissions.
Human Rights: Using our buying power to respect human rights
We are committed to respecting human rights and improving living and working conditions throughout our supply chains.
Our key achievements in human rights in 2020:
- All high-priority food commodity groups of the ALDI SOUTH Group, including fish and seafood, oils and condiments and processed produce are now covered by the ALDI Social Monitoring Programme (SMP).
- Since 2020, all banana and pineapple business partners for our European & US stores are integrated into our Corporate Responsibility Supplier Evaluation (CRSE) programme.
Resource Efficiency: Using resources wisely and protecting ecosystems
Our aspiration is that our products are made in a sustainable way and that we consider environmental and social criteria in our global supply chains.
Our key achievements in resources efficiency in 2020:
- We continued to increase the share of sustainable resources, such as cocoa, cotton, fish and seafood or timber.
- Furthermore, 74% of the ALDI SOUTH Group paper-based product packaging was certified or recycled, compared to 53% in 2019.
- We published the ALDI Detox Progress Report, summarising our 5-year performance in the area of reducing the negative impacts of chemical-based production processes used in the textile and footwear industry.
Zero Carbon: Doing our part to limit global warming
Our goal is to minimise the ecological footprint of our corporate activities by lowering our own greenhouse gas emissions and those of our suppliers and by ensuring that our products do not have a detrimental impact on the environment.
Our key achievements in zero carbon in 2020:
- As one of the first international food retailers, we have set ourselves science-based climate targets. By the end of 2025, we aim to reduce the operational emissions of our sites by more than a quarter compared to 2016. We are supporting the supply chain partners who are responsible for 75% of product related emissions to set their own science-based emissions targets by the end of 2024.
