Raw Material Sourcing
Our business sources raw materials from farmers and producers across the globe, touching the lives of countless people and affecting animals and nature. As a result, sourcing raw materials is one of our most significant impacts on the world, be it on human rights and livelihoods, climate, animal welfare or the environment. It’s also one of our greatest opportunities to be a force for good.
We continually seek to source responsibly and improve the ethics and sustainability of our sourcing, working closely with suppliers, expert partners and industry groups to raise standards and drive the systemic changes needed.
Taking a risk-based approach, we prioritise areas where we have the greatest leverage: our highest volume and most impactful raw materials and supply chains. Because we know that complex problems, such as deforestation, require solutions that go beyond procurement standards, we address them through projects in key supply chains and regions, as well as multi-stakeholder industry initiatives.
Commitments
- Source soya, palm oil, cocoa, timber, cotton, feather and down and cashmere for our own-brand products from more sustainable or recycled sources by December 2025;
- Source leather, polyester and man-made cellulosics for our own-brand products from more sustainable or recycled sources by December 2028;
- Achieve zero deforestation in the sourcing of soya, palm oil and timber for our own-brand products by December 2025;
- Work towards a zero deforestation and conversion target date of 2028 where we have not already established a target of 2025;
- Comply with relevant EU and UK legislation on due diligence concerning forest-risk commodity sourcing.
Highlights
Mission Statement: To source our raw materials more responsibly by continually improving the ethics and sustainability of our practices, delivering positive impact for people, nature and animals.
Cocoa First
20% of cocoa
in our own-brand products is verified deforestation free with Tony’s Open Chain.
Waitrose became the first UK grocery retailer to partner with Tony’s Open Chain, sourcing cocoa for nine of our own-brand chocolate bars. Tony’s Open Chain sourcing model aims to end exploitation in the cocoa industry and is underpinned by strong ethical sourcing principles, including paying farmers more, buying fully traceable beans and partnering with cooperatives in the long term.
Fairtrade Anniversary
£2,396,454 earned
by farmers and workers through the Fairtrade Premium from sales of Waitrose own-label products in 2024.
In 2024, we celebrated 30 years of partnership with the Fairtrade Foundation. Through sales of Waitrose own-label Fairtrade-certified products over the past 9 years, producer cooperatives earned an estimated £21,939,156 in Fairtrade Premium, an extra sum of money that farmers and workers invest in our banana, coffee, tea, cocoa, bagged sugar and wine supply chains, such as farming improvements and community initiatives of their choice.
Man-Made Cellulosics
131 suppliers
engaged on sourcing practices for man-made cellulosic fibres used in our products.
This year, we’ve engaged with 131 suppliers whose products had man-made cellulosic fibres in their composition, helping us understand where this material is sourced. We’re now working to ensure that all suppliers are sourcing from fibre producers ranked as ‘green shirt’ using Canopy’s Hot Button Score system.
Feather and Down
100% of feather and down
in own-brand filled bedding and cushions from certified more sustainable sources.
All feather and down for John Lewis own-brand filled bedding and cushions now comes from certified more sustainable sources. Adhering to standards such as DOWNPASS or the Responsible Down Standard means both animal welfare and quality are controlled along the supply chain.
Awards
John Lewis, Top Contributor Award, Better Cotton Member Awards
No.1 retailer globally, WWF Palm Oil Buyers Scorecard
Training for partners
In 2024, we completed the content for a new package of introductory training modules aimed at Partners closest to the product development process. The modules cover information and best practice on sourcing raw materials, as well as specifics related to cotton and feather and down alongside our existing timber module. We’ll launch these modules as part of a package of Partner-focused material on ethics, sustainability and human rights in 2025.
Towards our cocoa target
Out of 1277 tonnes of cocoa sourced for all products in 2024, 60.6%was Fairtrade certified, and 29.7% was Rainforest Alliance certified. Also, by the end of the year 90.3% of products used only certified cocoa. We intend to transition the remaining products to meet our target in 2025.
Progress
Certified cashmere
We’ve been working with our Italian cashmere supplier, Effe Gi, to ensure that, from 2025, they’ll be supplying us with fully Sustainable Fibre Alliance-certified (SFA) cashmere. Effe Gi is our second-largest supplier of cashmere; our largest supplier, Artwell, is already 100% SFA-certified.
Polyester reporting
In 2025, for the first time, we’ll report the percentage of polyester in John Lewis own-brand products coming from recycled sources. We’re also launching an internal dashboard that will enable our teams to track progress towards our 2028 target.
Decorative feather & down
Building on our progress with feather and down in filled bedding, we’ve committed to begin moving away from using feathers for decorative purposes in any new own-brand products, such as hats and seasonal decorations, from autumn 2025 until credible sources can be found. The feather and down supply chain is considered high risk for animal welfare, and current certifications don’t cover decorative uses.
Challenges
Making further progress towards our palm oil target depends on finding ways to bring to market and verify deforestation-free sources – a challenge that requires substantial change in global industry and supply chains. To this end, we participate in the UK Sustainable Commodities Initiative Oleochemicals Working Group which has been conducting shared research on oleochemical supply chains.
The sourcing of deforestation-free materials more broadly continues to be a challenge due to a lack of availability and difficulty providing evidence to prove the traceability of deforestation-free sources. This is exacerbated by legislative uncertainty in the UK and EU surrounding the requirements of forest-risk commodities laws that necessitate due diligence on sourcing. We strongly support this regulation, although note that mandatory compliance with the EUDR has been delayed until the end of 2025.
For soya, we have been working to address these challenges via our engagement in the UK Soy Manifesto and Retail Soy Group. Alongside the British Standard Institute, we have also co-funded the scoping of a new supply chain standard for deforestation-free animal feed.
Elsewhere, decades of global under-investment and the intensifying effects of climate change pose a risk to the sustainability of smallholder-grown crops like coffee. In 2025, we’ll be collecting data and reporting on our coffee sourcing footprint for the first time, helping us to understand our supply chain more deeply.
Looking Forward
In 2025, we expect to focus a lot of effort on preparing for the rollout of due-diligence legislation on forest-risk commodities in the UK and EU. This work will also help support our commitment to achieve zero deforestation in our own-brand supply chains by 2025 and 2028.
Putting in place the enabling conditions for compliance and acting to mitigate supply chain risks is, therefore, a priority for the year ahead. We’ll also take this opportunity to update our raw material sourcing policies to further our deforestation-free commitments.
Other efforts in 2025 will include building on our work to date with Better Cotton. Following on from our support to establish the Better Cotton programme in Egypt in 2018, we intend to start sourcing segregated Better Cotton from Egypt as part of their new Chain of Custody. Better Cotton is the largest sustainability initiative for cotton and the most widely used sourcing option for the Partnership’s cotton products. Their mission is to help cotton communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment.
Case Study
Helping indigenous communities preserve forests
As part of our commitment to responsible palm oil sourcing, we’ve spent the last four years providing funding to indigenous communities in East Kalimantan, Indonesia – money they’ve used to protect forests, maintain customs, build skills in conservation monitoring and develop sustainable income streams.
We believe that sourcing raw materials responsibly also means supporting initiatives that promote sustainable production landscapes and communities in the places they are produced.
One valuable way to do this is to enable indigenous and local people and nature to continue thriving together.
The Mului community has been fighting for the right to own and manage its lands for decades and, in 2018, it finally won that legal right across 7,200 hectares of forest. Over the last four years, Waitrose has provided funding of £84,000 via the Forest Conservation Fund to local NGO PADI, supporting the Mului with their development plan for the area and with government advocacy for the interests of the community and other indigenous groups.
Maintaining a thriving ecosystem for the long-term means ensuring good livelihoods for the forest community, as well as conserving vegetation and wildlife. One aspect of that work has seen the Mului community establish a forest patrol team that checks for signs of illegal encroachment and ensures the community farming activities don’t affect protected forest areas. The team also helps map the territory, using an app developed by PADI Indonesia to log data about the forest, including the variety of animal and plant species present.
As well as this, the support has enabled the creation of an indigenous knowledge and conservation school and curriculum that educates Mului young people about traditional wisdom and customary-based conservation practices – a vital component of the long-term strategy to sustain the cultural knowledge, beliefs and practices that will in-turn, maintain the conservation of customary forests.
The community has also been able to use funds to develop new income streams, such as through the training provided to produce Kelulut honey, using beneficial stingless bees, that is less affected by climate change than the wild-sourced honey they currently collect.
In recognition of their commitment and hard work to care for the forest, the Mului community has been honoured with Indonesia’s most prestigious environmental prize, the Kalpataru Award, and the example they’ve set is now having a wider influence in the region, helping other local and indigenous groups make the case for the benefits of customary forest management and learn from their approach.
Ahmad SJA, Executive Director of PADI Indonesia, “The grant from FCF to NGO PADI in the last three years has strengthened the capacity of the Mului Customary Community (MHA Mului) to continue conserving and affirming the identity of the Mului forest that they have been protecting for hundreds of years and in developing alternative economy which aligns with customary-based forest conservation values.”
Forest Conservation Fund's Linkedin Post
