Supermarket Audits

Stores' untapped potential in fighting plastic pollution

What is a Supermarket Audit?

Supermarkets play a critical role in the global plastics crisis. As one of the main places people buy everyday goods, they share responsibility with consumer companies for much of the single-use plastic that pollutes the environment. We have pressured the world's top plastic polluting companies like Coca-Cola and Unilever for years with the Break Free From Plastic Brand Audits, but supermarkets have so far escaped scrutiny.

This report offers a first global snapshot of how supermarkets are either facilitating or hindering efforts to reduce plastic use. Their business practices in store can have a huge impact on how much plastic is used and taken home by their customers. Supermarkets wield significant power when it comes to influencing consumer behavior and they could be using it to facilitate reuse and plastic reduction practices.

This research is a global citizen science effort seeking to investigate supermarket practices that reduce or proliferate single-use plastic.

More than 36 organizations investigated almost 500 stores in 27 countries using questionnaires to assess in-store business practices.

Slide the arrows left or right to compare a current supermarket with the ideal one.

CURRENT SUPERMARKET

IDEAL SUPERMARKET

CURRENT SUPERMARKET

IDEAL SUPERMARKET

Supermarket Audits by the numbers

496

individual audits conducted

organizations participated worldwide

Stores in 27 different countries were audited

247

unique supermarket brands

Key Findings

Legislation is currently the primary driver when it comes to plastic-free business practices in supermarkets. Companies shouldn’t wait to be forced to act by legislation. They should be leading the way in reuse models, packaging free shopping, and removing single use plastic from their stores.

Stores are performing poorly in adopting business practices that reduce plastic pollution, apart from where legislation requires them to do so. Nonetheless, we found examples of every positive business practice implemented somewhere in the world, highlighting their feasibility and acceptability to consumers.

Hardly any stores around the world have implemented simple plastic pollution positive actions such as bulk dry goods section (only 14% of audited stores do this) and removing plastic carrier bags for fresh produce (only 11%).

44% of audited stores have bottle deposit schemes, but those are largely attributed to Germany, where 96% have them as required by German law. Outside of Germany, only 17% of stores have such initiatives. This underscored how essential legislation is for driving plastic pollution reduction measures.

58% of audited stores around the world have no single-use carrier bags available at check out, or place a small charge on them. This is likely due to the widespread regulations to reduce plastic bags around the world - over a 100 countries have them.

53% of all audited stores globally have canvas shopping bags for sale as a reusable alternative to plastic bags.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

Executive summary available in English, Spanish, French, German, and Bahasa Indonesia in the report

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