Foreword by Lionel Souque

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Partners and Friends of the REWE Group

A war in the midst of Europe, a society exhausted by a pandemic that dragged on for over two years, drastic inflation and high energy costs – all of these things we currently face with bated breath. Yet even in times of multiple crises, one existential threat is relentlessly persistent: In the past year, average temperatures in Europe have reached new highs. This is just one of the facts to emerge from the European State of the Climate Report published at the end of April. The heatwaves and record temperatures are affecting among others the agricultural sector, river navigation and the energy industry, while forest fires released more CO₂ than at any time in the past 15 years. Without question, the climate crisis has reached us and has long since ceased to be merely an abstract future scenario.

As food retailers, we feel a shared responsibility to ensure that secure, healthy nutrition and climate protection go hand in hand. More than ever, our aim is to find and develop new solutions! This is why on the one hand we are investing massively in our supply chains in order to reduce emissions. The Scope 3 reduction targets we have already announced will once again be intensified, not least because this year REWE and PENNY in Germany are set to join the Science Based Target initiative. We are currently in the registration phase which will be completed by autumn 2023.

On the other hand, we are also supporting strong and effective climate protection projects – such as the NABU Climate Fund, which celebrated its first-year anniversary in April. Wetlands are known to be powerful in their ability to store CO₂ – but to do so, they must be preserved and rewilded. The first area to undergo wetland rewilding, near Cuxhaven, has meanwhile been secured. We are also making use of our broad-based ability to communicate with the public and actively integrating our customers – by purchasing selected products, they can positively impact the donation made to NABU. At the present time, we anticipate that in this first year we will exceed our promised annual support of at least five million euro by some 600,000 euro.

Dear Readers: As a trade and tourism company firmly rooted in Europe, we serve over eight million customers per day in Germany alone. We are partnered with tens of thousands of suppliers. We bear responsibility for around 384,000 employees, including more than 280,000 in Germany. Our cooperative values define us to this day. We are innately strong, as we have proven on a daily basis as the years go by. It is for this reason that we continue with courage and a clear stance to support the world and the society in which we live.

I hope you enjoy reading our Sustainability Report 2022 and find it both interesting and insightful!

Lionel Souque
CEO