The Financial Times

By Elizabeth Rigby

6 October 2006

British supermarket bosses like a bit of colour. Sir Ken Morrison, chairman of Wm Morrison, wears a charming yellow-and-black striped company tie when he visits the City of London; Justin King, J Sainsbury’s chief executive, has a suntan to match his company’s orange logo; and Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco’s chief executive, claims the love for his company runs so deep that if he were cleft in two, you would see nothing but the red, white and blue of Tesco.

However, in recent months, the only hue they want to talk about is green. “It’s the new black!” was the cliché trumpeted by Andy Bond, chief executive of Wal-Mart-owned Asda, at his very own environmental press show over the summer.

In the good old days, Sir Terry’s ability to get two-thirds of the nation’s housewives through his shop doors every month and his £1bn half-year profits would have got the rest champing at the bit. But strangely the likes of Mr King and Mr Bond seem more worried about Sir Terry’s wind power than his financial might.

There is some solace for observers who enjoy retailing as a blood sport. The agenda may have changed, but the approach to going green is reassuringly similar to other supermarket battles. Forget tree hugging, this is war.

Round one kicked off in May when Sir Terry unveiled (to a rather anti-big business audience) his Community plan, pledging to invest £100m in an environmental fund.

Not to be outdone, Mr Bond – taking guidance from his boss, Wal-Mart’s Lee Scott – scaled the grandstand in August and promised to host an Asda Sustainability Conference for all supermarkets to “share learnings”. That raised eyebrows among his “guests”. For Mr Bond forgot to invite the other chief executives along before telling the world of their expected attendance.

Round three saw the Sainsbury fight back with Mr King popping up everywhere to expound Sainsbury’s green credentials. He told anyone who would listen about organics, plastic bags and sustainable fishing. He declared he was “intentionally” trying to outpace Tesco on the environment and healthy eating and then took a swipe at Tesco for shunning the Food Standard Agency’s traffic light system for food labelling.

The backbiting has been getting tiresome. What is worse, say environmentalists, is that it is more “greenwash” than tangible change: Tesco’s £100m environmental technologies fund is a fraction of its £3.2bn capital expenditure plans for 2006-07.

Their scepticism will not put off Sir Terry, Mr King and Mr Bond now that they have the bit between their teeth. The chief executives get to seem socially responsible while also cutting their cost base – a combination that must seem a winning formula, at least to them. Better still, they get to do what they love best: compete with each other. Whether or not it helps the environment, the fun part of going green is trying to make your rivals green with envy.