ALDI was one of the first international food retailers to set a company-wide Science Based Target (SBT) for climate protection in 2020 and set ambitious goals such as reducing operational emissions by 26% by 2025. ALDI is not only well on its way to achieving this target but is even managing to reduce its emissions much further.
ALDI monitors its progress by annually calculating its Company Carbon Footprint for all its business processes and locations in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
Reducing operational emissions
In 2020 ALDI set a Science Based Target to reduce the Corporate Carbon Footprint by 26% by 2025 compared to base year 2016. Starting from an initial operational footprint of 1,430,952 tonnes of CO2e in Scope 1, 2 and Scope 3 (only external logistics) with an estate of over 5,600 stores, ALDI has reduced this figure to 892,741 tonnes of CO2e whilst at the same time growing its estate to 6,900 stores.
Objective: Reducing operational GHG emissions by 26% by 2025
In 2021, the ALDI SOUTH Group overachieved its absolute reduction target for operational emissions by reducing its operational emissions by 54%. When including external logistics providers, who run a significant share of the transport between our regional distribution centres (RDCs) and stores, the reduction is 38%.
Reducing supply chain emissions
Carbon emissions resulting from our corporate supply chains are also referred to as Scope 3 emissions. Overall, about 99% of our total GHG emissions are attributable to our corporate supply chain emissions.
Objective: Encouraging our suppliers (responsible for 75% of product-related emissions) to set science-based targets by 2024
Since 2021, we have been conducting annual supplier surveys on climate commitment to monitor our suppliers’ progress to set climate targets and identify which ones need support in joining our climate protection journey. The results of 2022 show that strategic suppliers, who are responsible for 22% of our product-related emissions, either have a target in line with the criteria of the Science Based Targets initiative or are committed to set themselves science-based targets within the next two years.
The updated Scope 3 emissions baseline was carried out in 2022 and will be the basis for developing our Zero Carbon roadmap in the future. For this update, ten categories from Scope 3 have been calculated for the ALDI SOUTH Group. As we continue to tackle eliminating our Scope 3 emissions, we can now look to all areas of emissions to ensure effective reduction measures take place. This updated calculation allows us to focus on the most relevant areas of emissions.
