Canada's Greenest Employers (2025) - Flipbook - Page 52
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CANADA'S GREENEST EMPLOYERS (2025)
Loblaw sets ambitious environmental goals
N
othing makes her
more committed to
her work at Loblaw
Companies Ltd., says
Leamington, Ont.,
Real Canadian Superstore
manager Tonya Ridley, than the
part she and her colleagues play in
meeting the company’s environmental, social and governance
(ESG) goals.
By focusing where we can
have the biggest impact
– doubling down on our
carbon reduction efforts and
tackling plastic and food
waste – we can use our size
to make a difference.
“My colleagues at the store and I
are passionate about reducing
food waste, and our daily
processes have helped create a
culture that’s made it second
nature. You hear all the time, ‘save
it, don’t scrap it,’ as colleagues
work out what can be done with a
product before sending it to
landfill,” Ridley says.
“We have huddles, daily walks,
constant two-way communication
and feedback to ensure everyone
is informed and engaged
— because without them, how
could we do this?”
Colleagues’ dedication meshes
tightly with Loblaw’s own, agrees
Sandra Kesseler, vice president
ESG integration and reporting.
“We have a fabulous tone from the
top here because as a familyowned business, we think long
term rather than just in terms of
what is right for this quarter or for
the year,” she says.
“Loblaw prioritizes ESG in
everything it does and ensures it is
doing the right thing for the
communities in which we serve,
from an environmental perspective as well as a social perspective.
And when we benchmark
ourselves against others, we
believe we are leaders.”
That’s supported by the steady
upward trajectory in results shown
in Loblaw’s annual ESG reports
since they began in 2008. The
Early Release of Priority 2024 ESG
disclosures highlights diverting
over 82,000 metric tonnes of food
from landfills through food
diversion initiatives and increased
donations to food charities, as well
as investing more than $40 million
in over 500 carbon reduction
initiatives.
Additionally, Loblaw has
adopted the Golden Design Rules
(GDR) for plastic packaging as
developed by the Consumer
Goods Forum’s global Coalition of
Action on Plastic Waste. The
company, Kesseler notes, has now
reached above 90-per-cent
compliance with the GDRs
— which include guidelines such
as avoiding hard-to-recycle
materials and reducing packaging
— and is on track to reach
100-per-cent compliance by the
end of 2025.
A major initiative concerns
improving refrigerant systems in
retail stores. In the past, leaking
coolant has been hard to detect
and environmentally harmful.
“We have leveraged data from
— Sandra Kesseler
Vice President ESG Integration and
Reporting
“We focus daily on awareness
and educating our consumers and
each other,” Ridley says. “We have
so many programs at the store
level, such as repurposing
products like bread loaves into
breadcrumbs or hot deli chicken
into sandwiches, and the
Flashfood app which consumers
can use to buy discounted,
near-expiry food — that one is
actually my favourite. Then there’s
our donations to local food
charities that feed hundreds of
people weekly in our community.”
These initiatives — corporate
priorities which rely on store-level
colleagues to execute — have
steadily expanded over the years,
continues Ridley, a 28-year veteran
at Canada’s largest food retailer.
Loblaw Companies has diverted nearly 86 million pounds of potential food waste from landfill over the past
five years.
