Our business and associated supply chains rely on water to produce the great quality food and products our customers expect. This is why responsible water management is critical not only to our ambition to protect and regenerate nature but also ensure the long-term resilience of our business and wider food system.
Global demand for freshwater is increasing whilst the amount available is in decline. Risks such as pollution and drought are leading to water availability and scarcity challenges, and excess water via flooding is damaging crops, infrastructure and communities . Moreover, water risks also impact the health of ecosystems and livelihoods and human rights in the form of affected income, access to safe drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene.
Water risks are complex and interconnected, requiring all stakeholders to work together to manage water responsibly. This is vital if we are to have enough safe and clean water for generations to come.
Own operations
Minimise the use of water in our own operations, driving towards water neutral by 2040
Supply chain
To source 50% of fresh food from areas of sustainable water management by 2030 (committed via the WRAP Water Roadmap)
To reduce the overall water footprint of our textile products by 30% by 2030
(committed via the Textiles 2030 Roadmap)
| Baseline | Performance | Target | ||
| 2018/19 | 2023/24 FY | 2024/25 FY | 2040/41 | |
| Absolute water usage within our own operations (m3) | 3224,000m3 | 2,621,341m3 | 2,562,660m3 | Water neutral |
For further information on our performance, please visit our Reports & Policies page for our Plan for Better report or read our full sustainability results in our Plan for Better Databook
We have completed a saliency assessment to identify our most salient environmental and human rights risks and have mapped our global water footprint and determined a list of our sourcing regions facing the most pertinent water risks (pollution, stress, and flooding).
Now that the most pertinent risks and risk-regions have been identified, we are working with our supply chain to mitigate the associated risks and drive targeted action. This includes:
Collaboratively creating relevant environmental resilience strategies in partnership with key suppliers
We work with our suppliers to better understand and address the impact of embedded water on environmental and social outcomes by improving farm-level data and monitoring, collaboratively mapping high water risk hotspots, and sharing best practice via supplier action groups.
Engaging industry partners in collective action projects tackling water issues across priority landscapes
Sainsbury’s is contributing to seven collective action projects globally to support landscape level sustainable water management by encouraging sustainable water management practices and implementing relevant nature-based solutions.
These projects are delivering action in high-water risk catchments in Spain, Kenya, South Africa, Peru, and the UK, focused on improving landscape resilience. The projects are led by local conveners to ensure a holistic understanding of local contexts, opportunities, and challenges as well as the societal impacts of unsustainable water use.
For example, Sainsburys has supported the re-introduction of native species to restore natural ecosystems and replenish water aquafers in Ica Valley Peru, leading to water, climate, and nature benefits including reduced flood risk which you can read more about here.
Collecting insights and promoting sustainable practices through various mechanisms such as disclosure and certification
Sainsbury’s is a signatory to the Courtauld 2030 Water Roadmap, the WWF Sustainable Basket, the WWF’s Retailers’ Commitment for Nature, and is also a member of the FNET Climate and Human Rights working group.
Many suppliers are already successfully disclosing their actions to address water risks through Higg (Textiles), M2030 / CDP (Food & GM), and Achilles (GNFR). Jeanologica Environmental Impact Measurement is also being tested across Sainsbury’s textile supply chains.
We are driving towards water neutrality across our direct operations by 2040. We use about a billion litres of water a year less than we did in 2005 and continue to review every aspect of water across our direct operations, measuring and lowering the amount of water used across our estate as much as possible.
An important first step in our water-saving strategy was for us to understand how much water we are currently using. We now regularly monitor water usage across every site, supported with additional automated meter reading (AMR) data and smart meter data. We have created a benchmark for all sites, so we can see when stores are using more water than they should and spot opportunities to reduce water in stores. We can also monitor the success of our water-saving technologies, from rainwater harvesting to water-saving taps and waterless urinals.
We continue to roll out rainwater harvesting systems across our estate in order to recycle water. We currently have over 130 rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems across our estate and we installed our first micro RWH system in Balderton in 2021.
In 2021, we decided to take control of our own water supply and move to self-supply. This means that we buy water supply and wastewater services from the water company and provide our own retail services. Self-supply enables us to have greater control over our water management, including meter readings, accuracy of data and future water reduction activities. Our English estate is now 100 per cent self-supply.
In 2023, we started piloting the Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting (VWBA – Replenish) methodology to support us in reaching our water neutrality target. We have purchased Replenish volumes in the Wyre catchment in Lancashire, which will annually replenish the volumes of water that we use in this catchment area across four stores back into local natural ecosystems, also reducing flood risk.
We have expanded on this pilot, purchasing additional Replenish volumes in two other catchments – the Beult in the South-East and the Cocker in North-West. Both projects are led by local Rivers Trusts and will be implementing Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to reduce flood risk and improve water quality for the target areas.
We avoid creating trade effluent where possible, but around 100 of our sites do produce some effluent. As the water we use is disposed of via local municipality sewage, we have ensured discharge consents are obtained from the relevant authorities. We want to make sure that we don’t contribute to water pollution and environmental degradation, so we monitor the amount and type of effluent discharged. This helps to ensure that we’re adhering to the parameters and limits on discharge quantities, chemical threshold and matter restrictions stated in the trade effluent consents issued to us.
Our suppliers take samples at least annually at all sites with a discharge consent in place to verify compliance. The sampling frequency is risk-based (the highest risk of non-compliance will be sampled more frequently) with data stored centrally for each discharge point.
The reason we don't treat discharge
All the water used in our operations is discharged into foul drains and sewers which then lead to sewerage treatment works that are managed by the water authority. Wastewater treatment operators are required to treat wastewater to the correct standard as per the Urban Wastewater Treatment (England and Wales) Regulations 1994. We do not generate any industrial wastewater and are therefore not required to carry out any treatment to our wastewater, complying with the Urban Wastewater Treatment Regulations.
In 2022, we carried out a water foot-printing exercise to understand the importance of water across our supply chain. Our modelled supply chain water footprint represents 98% of our total water footprint, with the lower tiers of our supply chain making up the majority of our water footprint.
Understanding our impacts and dependencies on water through this exercise has allowed us to prioritise areas of the business to focus on to deliver the greatest impact on water.
Water stewardship is commonly defined as “the use of water that is socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically beneficial, achieved through a stakeholder-inclusive process that involves both site and catchment level actions.” Alliance for Water Stewardship. We align our work on water with the WWF Water Stewardship Ladder (below).
A critical component of water stewardship is collective action, which is why we are signatories to the UK Food and Drink Pact - a roadmap towards water security for UK food & drink supply. This practical response for the protection of water resources brings together food and drink businesses to collectively take action in water catchments, with interventions led by delivery partners such as The Rivers Trust, Good Stuff International and WWF.
The overarching goal of the Roadmap is for 50% of the UK's fresh food to be sourced from areas with sustainable water management by 2030, and there are specific actions for businesses that combine to deliver this, including identifying and addressing water risk hotspots.
The methodology for calculating the sustainable water management metric was outlined in 2023. For UK and EU production, the Good Ecological Status (under the Water Framework Directive) of the corresponding water body from which a product is sourced is the preferred method for determining sustainable water management. This metric relates to the condition of the wider catchment, rather than the specific practices or processes adopted on sourcing farms.
This sustainable water management metric has been adopted by the WWF Sustainable Basket, for which we are also signatories.
In May 2023, we worked with WWF, WRAP and the other signatories to the WWF’s Retailers’ Commitment for Nature to agree a revised set of leadership actions and associated funding contributions intended to drive progress towards the milestones set out in the Roadmap. These actions are intended to address systemic water risks across key sourcing areas:
We support seven collective action projects through the UK Food and Drink Pact Water Roadmap, all situated in important sourcing areas for our supply chain, across the UK, Spain, South Africa, Peru and Kenya. The projects are delivered by The Rivers Trust, Good Stuff International and WWF, and are tackling the most salient water risks in these regions.
In an industry-first partnership, Nectar360, which runs the Nectar loyalty programme, launched a new incentive scheme with Severn Trent, giving extra points to Nectar card holders who have a smart water meter and can demonstrate that they are reducing their water usage. As well as more loyalty points, customers who take part are likely to benefit from lower energy and water bills, if they’re on a measured bill. Launched in November 2024 and scheduled to run for 18 months, Severn Trent will select smart meter customers to take part in the scheme, with a sign-up target of around 25,000. As of March 2025, just under 4,000 people are on the scheme, and we are on track to meet our sign-up targets by the end of 2025.
