Nearly 200 Coles shareholders are calling on the supermarket to disclose its plastic packaging use and commit to reducing plastic ahead of its annual general meeting in November.
A group of 190 Coles Group investors has issued a members’ statement raising concerns about the company’s lack of transparency on plastic packaging. The investors are urging Coles to reduce plastic packaging across its own-brand products and publicly report its progress.
The statement has been sent to Coles and is normally circulated to shareholders before the AGM. The investors are supported by the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS), ethical share trading platform SIX and sustainable superannuation fund Future Super.
The move follows Woolworths publicly reporting its plastic intensity score for own-brand packaging for the first time. The score measures the amount of plastic packaging used per product sold.
AMCS Plastics and Packaging Program Manager Tara Jones said Woolworths’ decision was a step towards greater accountability and increased pressure on Coles to disclose its own plastic use.
“Woolworths has shown its competitors that the same can be done for plastic use,” Jones said.
Woolworths reported using 10 grams of plastic per unit sold across its supermarket and Big W stores in the previous financial year.
Jones said ALDI had reported a plastic intensity score of 15 grams per product in 2019 but had not publicly reported another score since, while Coles had never publicly reported one.
She said publicly tracking plastic use was an important first step towards reducing it, calling on Woolworths to continue reporting annually and Coles to begin doing so.
Packaging accounts for 60% of litter polluting Australia’s environment, according to the supplied information.
SIX Environmental, Social and Governance Manager James Alexander said excessive plastic waste represented a material financial risk for investors, including potential litigation, regulation and consumer backlash.
“Professional investors are asking how exposed the supermarkets are to this problem and how they are dealing with it,” Alexander said.
The investor statement calls on Coles to publicly report its plastic packaging use, establish a plastic reduction target, eliminate unnecessary packaging and support an extended producer responsibility scheme aimed at reducing unnecessary plastic.