Sustainability With Nature and Biodiversity

Protecting and restoring nature and biodiversity, to build resilience and mitigate the impacts of our business on the natural world, including by championing regenerative agriculture, tackling deforestation, and building water resilience.

Performance highlights

45,000

indigenous plants grown by three Waitrose Foundation-funded nurseries in South Africa to replant biodiversity corridors.

Biodiverse South Africa

45,000 indigenous plants grown by three Waitrose Foundation-funded nurseries in South Africa to replant biodiversity corridors.
PHOTO: © Thomas Häusler, WWF

160,000

hectares of Waitrose UK farms mapped with digital tool Land App.

Nature-friendly farming

160,000 hectares of Waitrose UK farms mapped with digital tool Land App.
PHOTO: © Katharine Mager

UK farms will have land management plans over the next two years.

1

of only five organisations worldwide to pilot the new Ocean science-based targets for nature process.

Ocean stewardship

1 of only five organisations worldwide to pilot the new Ocean science-based targets for nature process.
PHOTO:© Teryll Kerrdouglas

6,000

wetland plants planted by volunteers to improve North Norfolk wetlands and water quality.

Norfolk Wholescape

6,000 wetland plants planted by volunteers to improve North Norfolk wetlands and water quality.
PHOTO:© Greg Armfield, WWF

Our approach to nature and biodiversity

Our founder, John Spedan Lewis, was passionate about the environment and the wildlife in it. Today, amidst global climate and biodiversity crises, we reflect that passion through Our Plan for Nature.

Download Our plan for nature report

Everything we sell depends on nature, so it’s important that we act boldly to protect and restore it, reducing the impact of sourcing and manufacturing our products.

Wildlife has declined globally by 73% since 1970 (WWF Living Planet Report), and unless we all work together the extinction rate will accelerate.

At our pioneering Leckford Estate farm, we’re at the forefront of understanding the impact of British farming on biodiversity. Leckford is a test bed for regenerative agriculture and more sustainable techniques that we can scale to suppliers.

We know that we are part of the problem of global nature loss, and so we must also be part of the solution. We have five commitments to guide our approach.

Nature-Led Design

Incorporate natural elements and design principles into all key new build and renovation projects

Ecosystem  Regeneration Funding

Support ecosystem protection and regeneration projects

Net Zero Leckford Farm

Reduce our greenhouse gas emissions across our farm at Leckford with the aim for it to be net zero well ahead of our wider 2035 commitment

Zero Deforestation Commitment

Achieve zero deforestation- and conversion-free in the sourcing of key commodities across our own-brand product supply chains

Sustainable Water Management

Fund sustainable water management programmes in key fresh-produce sourcing areas

Progress

We’re helping nature thrive at Leckford through regenerative farming and biodiversity monitoring, with the estate becoming the first in the UK to achieve Regenified™ certification. Our work supports a broader ambition to create a centre of excellence for sustainable agriculture. Globally, we’re partnering with WWF to restore ecosystems and protect biodiversity across key sourcing regions.

Expand

Leckford’s flourishing nature

Waitrose’s orchard and vineyards at our Leckford Estate have become the UK’s first to achieve RegenifiedTM certification. This means the farm has been recognised for growing grapes, apples and pears in a way that’s friendlier to nature.

While the England Wild Bird Indicator shows that farmland bird populations have declined 62% over the last 50 years, in the past three years, Leckford has recorded 110 bird species. Over half are Red or Amber listed on the UK Birds of Conservation Concern.

Leckford is also boosting habitat for insects and pollinators. New field margins and beetle banks in and around arable fields have increased the habitat for invertebrates that help control crop pests. Metrics generated by Land App calculated that the percentage of our farm’s connectedness – the semi-natural areas within 20 metres of each other – increased from 58% to 99%. This big improvement was achieved by increasing overall habitat cover by less than 1%.

Water stewardship

Waitrose has continued to drive collective water stewardship across our key global sourcing regions. In Doñana, Spain, we collaborated with the UK Food and Drink Pact’s Water Roadmap to support on-the-ground action improving water governance and availability and promote best practice among local producers.

We also provided support for the scoping phase of the WAVE Partnership in the Aconcagua catchment of Chile. This region is a sourcing area for our avocados and faces high water stress. Through collaboration with producers, government and other buyers, we helped establish the framework needed to bring the valley's water resources back into balance, promoting the adoption of regenerative agriculture principles and seeking to secure the long-term resilience of the supply chain for our customers.

Challenges

We’re evolving our approach to biodiversity by adopting a science-based framework to measure and monitor our impact. In 2024, we began setting nature-related targets through the Science Based Targets Network, but recent updates to the guidance have required us to revisit our risk analysis. Once this is complete, we’ll be ready to move forward with setting and delivering meaningful land and freshwater targets.

Explore Challenges

Delivering the necessary systemic change to protect nature and biodiversity remains one of our most significant long-term challenges. We’re seeing growing impacts on our global sourcing regions, driven by climate change and the accelerating degradation of natural capital, presenting both commercial and environmental risks. Addressing issues on this scale requires collaboration, such as that we engage in through initiatives like the WWF Retailers’ Commitment for Nature, the Institute of Grocery Distribution’s Food System Change Leaders Forum and the WRAP Water Roadmap.

Despite these best efforts, it remains challenging to translate diverse local action, such as efforts to ensure water security in key catchments, into clear, simple headline goals – and vice versa.

Our experience with collective action has highlighted critical systemic issues that have the potential to slow progress. We continue to stress the need for transparency, robust governance and speed of action to convening bodies. These are all vital to ensure resources are maximised for impact in priority sourcing regions and to secure the sustainability of produce and livelihoods on which society relies.

Ongoing amendments to government incentive schemes also continue to make the funding landscape for farm-level interventions uncertain. While robust, coordinated private-sector leadership is essential, the retail sector cannot drive the necessary changes without support from other actors, including government.

Looking forward

We’re continuing to work with WWF to deliver meaningful benefits for nature and biodiversity across our supply chains and landscapes. In South Africa, we’re supporting growers and landowners to build climate and water resilience, while in Norfolk, we’re exploring how to scale the UK seaweed industry for environmental and economic gain. Alongside Norfolk Rivers Trust, we’re engaging landowners in the Landscape Recovery scheme to help shape priority actions that support nature, climate and sustainable food production.

Expand Progress

Our partnerships with WWF in Norfolk and South Africa are coming to an end in 2026, and we’re discussing how we take the lessons and successes forward. Our work with WWF India continues until summer 2028.

We’ll continue collaborating to overcome the challenge of traceability and nature-related impact data collection. We’ll facilitate this by working in partnership with suppliers, primary producers and internal and external partners. We also intend to review how we prioritise supply chains and sub-national regions for target-setting. The aim of this work is to establish our first freshwater science-based targets for nature next year and successfully complete the Science Based Targets Network’s Ocean pilot.

We aim to use the insights from our collaboration with Land App to produce a State of Nature report for our UK farming supply base, and we are also working closely with our climate and responsible sourcing teams to develop a collaborative and integrated transition plan that will outline how we intend to achieve our ambitious goals and targets for climate and nature.

Helping suppliers create a cleaner India

Case Study

Expand

As part of our partnership with WWF, we’ve been funding collective action to address water quality and scarcity in the Noyyal and Bhavani river basins. As well as being home to unique wildlife, these rivers enable a great deal of agricultural and industrial activity, including producing textile products for John Lewis.

Through this collaboration, WWF is working with local businesses in the region to introduce a range of industrial clean technology initiatives aimed at reducing the environmental demands of the textile industry.

The initiatives involve assessing and improving factory operations and cover areas such as the usage and management of energy, water, wastewater, materials and chemicals, as well as each site’s approach to safety. WWF also supports businesses with access to funds and expertise to help factory owners make changes in alignment with their assessment results.

During 2024, we started reaching out to our suppliers in the region to try to engage them in the programme. One of our babywear and nightwear suppliers has now undertaken the assessment, as have four of their suppliers involved in the dying, printing and spinning processes. The assessment has helped our supplier identify significant potential savings to their water and energy usage.

“[We are] improving processes like compressed air systems, water usage and boiler efficiency, significantly lowering energy consumption while boosting efficiency and cutting costs. The optimisation measures will contribute to more responsible production practices and significantly reduce the water and environmental footprint of John Lewis products.” John Lewis babywear supplier, India

Supporting WWF’s Norfolk Wholescape project

Case Study

Expand

We’re working with WWF-UK and its partners in Norfolk, a key sourcing region for Waitrose, to pilot Wholescape – an integrated, cross-system approach that works across land, rivers, coast and sea to find solutions to the ‘triple challenge’ of restoring nature, tackling climate change and supporting communities.

For three years, our Norfolk Wholescape partnership has brought together key stakeholders, including Norfolk County Council, RSPB, National Trust and Norfolk Rivers Trust, to help protect and restore nature. Collaboratively, we’ve developed a framework for tackling elements of the nature and climate crises by considering the interconnectedness of natural and human systems.

This year, many of the projects we’ve funded through our partnership have come to a close. During this time, we’ve helped:

Formalise an association supporting farm clusters and landscape recovery projects across Norfolk and Suffolk, linking over 600 farmers across 300,000 hectares of land;
Fund five community groups establishing nature-recovery projects that deepen connections with and promote responsibility for protecting local nature. The projects are run by a diverse range of communities and focus on themes such as enhancing wellbeing, restoring nature and widening access to the natural world;
Re-meander 1.3km of river to restore natural flow and created 650m² of treatment wetland in the Stiffkey catchment;
Community volunteers plant 6,000 wetland plants, creating a nutrient-filtering wetland that flows into the River Stiffkey, a chalk stream in North Norfolk;
Restore ten ponds, providing vital wildlife habitats, retaining water in the landscape, reducing agricultural run-off and supporting local biodiversity. The work also helps restore seagrass on the Norfolk coast by reducing harmful discharges from the river;
Ten farms develop and adopt plans for sustainable farming practices.

Our partnership in Norfolk ends in February 2026, so we’re considering how to integrate lessons and successes from our work with WWF into our supply chain.

We’re not finished in Norfolk yet, however. Once completed, work we’ve funded in Blakeney Harbour will detail habitats and species to be prioritised for ecosystem restoration and highlight suitable pilot locations for these efforts. A Partnership-funded report on the value of UK seaweed will also be published in 2026.

"Norfolk is one of the most intensively farmed regions in the UK, which makes it a powerful place to lead change. With support from the John Lewis Partnership, we've delivered practical solutions to tackle climate change and nature loss whilst providing food for a growing population, such as working directly with local farmers to develop plans for sustainable farming practices. The funding from this partnership has helped us to establish our first pilot Wholescape programme in Norfolk and demonstrate a future where people and nature can thrive together." Lucy Lee (UK Chief Advisor, WWF-UK)