Together for more climate protection

We want to make a measurable contribution to mitigate global warming.

Commitment

By joining the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in March 2024, we as REWE Group have committed to science-based climate targets based on the 1.5-degree path of the Paris Agreement.
By joining the SBTi in July 2023, REWE and PENNY in Germany had already committed to science-based reduction targets along the entire value chain.

Objectives

Our goal as a Group is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. We focus on drastically reducing emissions in our own activities and in our supply chains (Scope 3), where 98 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions occur.
We require all strategic private label suppliers*, who are responsible for 75 per cent of our product-related private label emissions, to set climate targets in accordance with SBTi by the end of 2024.

Our successes*

What we have already achieved

To achieve our reduction targets, we are pursuing numerous measures, both at corporate level and along our supply chains.

With the “Together for more climate protection” initiative, we support private label products suppliers in defining SBTi climate targets.

In 2023, we developed the “Förderprogramm Klimaschutz” (Climate protection support programme) under the umbrella of the Competence Centre for Agriculture and presented it at the beginning of 2024. It entails that projects by private label products suppliers that reduce GHG emissions in the supply chain are to be co-financed with several million euros.

We will make our supply chains deforestation- and conversion-free by the end of 2025.¹

We will switch our total product range² to peat-free soils by 2025.

We are constantly expanding our vegan private label products, which, compared to similar animal products, save emissions during production. By the end of 2030, we will design our sales and service packaging ³ to be more environmentally friendly (see focus topic Circular Economy) and therefore emit less emissions.

At the corporate level⁴, we are reducing our consumption of fossil fuels, including district heating, by 20 per cent by 2030 compared to the base year 2019. In 2023 our logistics department tested the use of electric and hydrogen driven trucks, for example in store delivery.

80%

At the DERTOUR Group, we are working to make emissions from travel transparent. In 2023, we were the first major tour operator to acquire Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) made from biogenic residues as part of a strategic partnership with the Lufthansa Group, which can reduce CO₂ emissions by around 80 per cent compared to conventional kerosene.

Full wind power ahead

We have been using certified green electricity in German stores, DIY stores, warehouses, and travel agencies since 2008. We were the first retailer in Germany to conclude a long-term Power Purchase Agreement for an offshore wind farm; from 2025, the electricity for 1,500 stores in Germany will come from the Borkum Riffgrund 3 wind farm, ten per cent of which will go to Austria.

^* Scope: REWE and PENNY in Germany, deviations are explicitly stated.

¹ For our primary high-risk raw materials such as cocoa, coffee, palm oil and soy in animal feed with cut-off date 01/01/2020. Conversion refers to all valuable ecosystems.

² Scope: REWE and PENNY in Germany as well as toom Baumarkt DIY stores.

³ Scope: Private label products at REWE and PENNY in Germany, toom Baumarkt DIY stores, BILLA, BILLA PLUS, PENNY and ADEG in Austria.

⁴ Scope: All consolidated REWE Group companies that were part of the Group in 2023, including independent retailers with REWE shareholdings. Accordingly, units that left the Group before the financial year were not included.

We are successfully promoting climate protection and decarbonisation through our own initiatives or projects with partners such as NABU. We also combine our financial strategy with our sustainability strategy.

900M €

In 2023, we became the first German food retailer to issue a Sustainability-Linked Bond of 900 million euros on the capital market, the terms of which are directly linked to the achievement of our climate targets.

Since 2022, REWE in Germany has been supporting the NABU Climate Fund – Europe’s largest moorland renaturalisation programme for agricultural land – with at least five million euros annually for five years.

We have more than halved our GHG emissions related to sales areas at corporate level in Germany and Austria compared to 2006.

Since 2008, 399 stores (2022: 371) have been built in Germany in accordance with the green building criteria of the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen” (German Association for Sustainable Building) and 175 (2022: 155) are under construction or in planning. There are now also ten warehouses of this type, with five more in planning or under construction.

PENNY in Germany, together with the Molkerei Berchtesgadener Land (Berchtesgadener Land dairy), was able to support the joint Zukunftsbauer project with over one million euros from 2021 to the end of 2023. This has resulted in nearly 400 measures for energy storage, -generation and increasing -efficiency at family-run farms in the Alpine region.

Vegan diversity

With their vegan private label brands and branded products, REWE and PENNY currently offer over 1,900 purely plant-based products in Germany and 1,620 private label products in the Austrian stores. REWE in Germany was recognised as the “Vegan-friendliest store” in 2023 by the Albert Schweitzer Foundation for our environment.

Read our Progress Report 2023 as PDF

Further links