Sustainable Marketing in UK Supermarket Industry

Running head: SUSTAINABLE MARKETING
Sustainable marketing
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Task 1 Identification of sustainability issues faced by the supermarket industry......................3
Task 2 Recommendations for adoption of sustainable behaviours............................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The report is prepared to discuss about the management of sustainable marketing
considering the business organisation named Waitrose & Partners in United Kingdom. The
report will focus on the identification of various issues related to the management of
sustainability that are being faced by the UK supermarket industry and also how sustainable
behaviours have been adopted by the supermarket industry in UK to create a positive impact
on the environment (Lii et al. 2013). As seen from various evidences, the major issues related
to the management of sustainability within the supermarket sector include generation of food
wastes along with use of plastics for packaging purposes, which has created a negative
impact on the environment too. To deal with the issues and challenges, the business
organisation named Waitrose in UK has to be considered, which shall need to prioritise on
the management of sustainability for ensuring proper health and wellbeing of people as well
as the community (Waitrose.com 2019). Based on the analysis of these issues and probable
impacts, suitable recommendations will be provided for ensuring management of sustainable
behaviours as well as remain socially responsible for the positive health and wellbeing of the
customers and even the community at large.
Task 1 Identification of sustainability issues faced by the supermarket industry
There are multiple issues and challenges associated with the management of
sustainability and sustainable behaviours experienced by the supermarket industry in United
Kingdom. From various evidences, it has been found that the major issues include the high
amount of food wastes produced and the packaging done with the use of excessive plastics,
which often cannot be recycled and it can create a negative impact on the environment. With
the analysis of various sustainability trends within the supermarket industry, it has been found
that the generation of food wastes has been a severe issue or challenge related to

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sustainability management within the concerned industry (Ottman 2017). The major causes
have been the families residing in UK, who have been throwing away more than 4.2 million
tonnes of food every year, according to the statistics provided by the Waste and Resources
Action Programme. The rising health concerns are also associated with the consumers’
behaviours regarding their interest in healthy and green food items, which is necessary for
improving the health and wellbeing of people. The consumers’ tastes and behaviours have
kept on changing from time to time, which has also made them inclined towards healthy food
options and thus, in many cases, excessive food items have been purchased, but due to their
consumption habits regarding the healthy food options, these foods are often thrown away
(Pogrebova, Konnikov and Yuldasheva 2017). Due to this, it has resulted in higher food as
well as waste generation and could be often considered as harmful for the environment
because of polluting the land, water and air as well. Moreover, it has also been found that UK
holds a record of huge amount of dumping wastes due to the production of more than 5.2m
tonnes of wastes generated while packaging food items along with over 6.7m tonnes of food
wastes generated every year (Katrandjiev 2016).
The generation of food wastes also create huge negative impact on the environment,
economic as well as the social problems have been created. Due to the huge amount of food
wasted and also being lost every year during the packaging process and also while managing
the various processes and operations in the food chain management, there have been negative
effects on the entire supermarket industry as well as on the environment at large. This could
also be related to global climate change conditions and also other challenges that could also
result in the depletion of resources along with affecting the ecosystem negatively too (Kotler
et al. 2015). There has been growing concern about these major sustainability issues and
challenges, which has to be resolved with the help of using water as a major resource and by
ensuring that green and sustainable approaches are adopted for the purpose of minimising the