Courtauld Commitment

The Courtauld Commitment is an agreement between WRAP and major grocery organisations which will lead to new packaging solutions and technologies so that less rubbish ends up in the household bin. The agreement is a powerful vehicle for change and will result in real reductions in packaging and food waste.

Thirty major retailers, brands and suppliers have joined the Courtauld Commitment since it was launched in July 2005.

Under this agreement, WRAP works in partnership with retailers, brand owners, manufacturers and their packaging suppliers to develop solutions across the whole supply chain. These solutions include using innovative packaging formats; reducing the weight of packaging (e.g. bottles, cans and boxes); increasing the use of refill and self-dispensing systems; collaboration on packaging design guidance and increasing the amount of recycled content packaging used.

Signatories are:

Retailers

Signed July 2005: Asda, Alliance Boots, the Co-operative Group, Iceland, Marks & Spencer, Morrison's, Musgrave (Budgens & Londis), Sainsbury's, Somerfield, Tesco and Waitrose.

This represents over 90% of the UK Grocery market.

Brands and Suppliers

Signed 2006: H J Heinz and Northern Foods.

Signed 2007: Britvic, Cadbury, Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd, Dairy Crest, Duchy Originals, Kellogg's, Mars UK (formerly Masterfoods), McBride, Müller Dairy UK, Nestlé UK, Premier Foods and Danone Waters UK & Ireland Ltd.

Signed 2008: Young's Seafood, United Biscuits, Burton's Foods, Greencore Group (UK) and Warburtons.

Interested in signing up to the Courtauld Commitment? Contact retail@wrap.org.uk for more information.

What the signatories are planning to do:

All signatories are working on reducing their packaging and some have developed their own waste reduction targets, for example:

ASDA: 25% packaging reduction target for own label food products by 2008.

Cadbury: 10% reduction in packaging used per tonne of product and 25% in the more highly packaged seasonal and gifting items.

Marks & Spencer: a 25% reduction in non-glass packaging by 2012.

Morrisons: 15% packaging reduction target for own brand by 2010.

Musgrave Group (Budgens and Londis) are in the process of revising their packaging guidelines to incorporate the need for packaging reduction.

Sainsbury's: 5% overall packaging reduction target by 2008 and a 25% packaging reduction target for fresh produce by May 2008.

Somerfield are redesigning their ready meal packaging to extend shelf life and cut food waste.

Tesco: 25% reduction across all packaging including brand and own label by 2010.

Waitrose: put in place targets to keep future packaging levels below those of 2002, and have cut packaging waste growth by 15% in 2006.

Background

At WRAP's invitation, the Courtauld Commitment agreement took shape at a Ministerial summit, held at the Courtauld Gallery in March 2005, where the Environment Minister and Chief Executive of WRAP met with senior representatives from the majority of the leading UK grocery retailers, as well as the British Retail Consortium.

As a result of the summit, the participating retailers agreed to support WRAP in the achievements of its objectives: