Action believes that sustainability should be accessible for all. Its comprehensive Action Sustainability Programme is structured around four pillars: people, planet, product and partnerships. It sets out Action’s ambitions on climate, the development of its people, on community partnerships and ensuring minimum social and environmental standards in its supply chain.

Since we became a long-term shareholder in Action in 2011, we have supported it as it has developed its sustainability strategy. Action renewed its materiality assessment in 2023, 
which identified eight material sustainability topics. We will cover progress on two of these 
in this section. Please refer to the Action Update 2023 for more detail on these and other material topics.

Progress on material topics

Energy and emissions

Action has a target to reduce its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by at least 60% by 2030 from a 2021 baseline. By the end of 2023, it had achieved a 46% reduction against the baseline while delivering strong growth in its network of stores and distribution centres. To achieve this, 90% of electricity is now procured from renewable sources, most stores have been disconnected from the gas supply and solar panels have been installed at seven out of its 13 distribution centres. Action aims to have disconnected gas, and fitted LED lighting, at all stores by the end of 2024. In addition, the company is now using HVO fuel for all of its 150 owned trucks and is piloting four new zero-emission¹ e-trucks at distribution centres in the Netherlands and Germany.

Action calculated its Scope 3 emissions for the first time in 2023, using a 2021 baseline. The exercise showed that Scope 3 emissions account for 99% of Action’s total carbon footprint, with product raw materials, manufacturing and transportation representing 75% of the total. The company will use the insights from this exercise to develop its climate strategy, engaging with suppliers and supply chain partners to reduce Scope 3 and product-related emissions in the future. As a first step to addressing its Scope 3 emissions, Action has agreed with its most significant ocean freight carriers to use eco-fuels for shipments from Asia to Europe. The company has committed to set near-term emissions reduction science-based targets covering Scopes 1, 2 and 3 and aims to submit these for validation by the SBTi during 2024.

Supply chain transparency and responsible sourcing

Action requires its suppliers to sign up to an ethical sourcing policy, which sets out minimum standards in areas such as forced labour, health and safety, pay and working rights. In addition, it requires all factories in high-risk countries to have an annual social compliance audit. Regular spot checks are performed to ensure factories remain compliant. The company looks to expand this programme every year, and conducted 2,104 assessments at suppliers and factories in 2023, compared to 1,682 in 2022. Action works with external partners to ensure expected standards are upheld, including amfori and supply chain expert ImpactBuying.

Action has a long-term commitment to supply chain transparency and aims to deliver transparency to all tiers of production by 2030. The current priority is final manufacturing factories (tier 1), where the company has an ambition to achieve 100% transparency by 2024 (from 88% in 2023). This is an important step to ensure that suppliers respect human rights and safety. The business thinks strategically about where it sources its products from and is actively diversifying its product sourcing to more geographies. Last year, despite significant sales growth, total European sourcing was maintained at 45%.

During 2023, Action achieved its goals to source 100% sustainable cotton (private and white label products) and cocoa (private label products) and made significant progress towards its goal of achieving 100% sustainably sourced timber by 2024, with 95% of timber products certified as sustainable in 2023.

1 The trucks will have zero direct emissions if they are charged using renewable electricity.