A new report by the Changing Markets Foundation and Mighty Earth has revealed that the 20 largest supermarkets in the world, including Tesco and Asda, have failed to make meaningful progress on their contributions to global methane emissions.

Methane is a major contributor to global warming, and agriculture accounts for 42 per cent of total methane emissions. As the main distributors of agricultural goods, methane emissions fall into supermarkets’ Scope 3, or indirect, emissions. This means that while the brands are not directly responsible for the emissions, they have the ability to impact them through purchasing decisions that would affect supplier behaviour.

Despite this, the report says the sector is defined by a “growing leadership vacuum” on the issue; not one of the 20 supermarkets investigated publicly discloses methane emissions, despite building momentum higher in the supply chain.

Tesco tops the Methane Action Tracker for a second year in a row, but still only scores 48 out of 100 points, with Lidl and Dutch chain Ahold Delhaize in second and third, respectively. European supermarkets score more highly than US ones on the whole, taking up all of the top ten spots.

Asda lost the most points of any retailer compared to last year, dropping from eighth to tenth place, while Germany’s Edeka-Verbund gained 17.5 points, bringing it to sixth.

The report stresses that even the supermarkets at the top of the rankings are not leaders in methane reporting, however, failing to make substantive progress on reporting or reductions.

“For a second year running, supermarkets have shelved ambition to tackle superheating methane embedded in meat and dairy supply chains,” said Jurjen de Waal, senior director at Mighty Earth. “Methane emissions from livestock agriculture, primarily cattle, are a key driver of climate change. Rapidly cutting methane is one of the fastest ways to put the brakes on global warming. Supermarkets are uniquely positioned to support a shift to diets with less meat and more plants, a key solution for tackling methane.”

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