Sustainability strategy

METRO is a leading company in food wholesale and distribution. We strive to make our professional HoReCa and Trader customers even more successful and do so responsibly with our sustainability approach METRO SUSTAINABLE. We want to drive change towards responsible and sustainable business – within our business operations, but especially in our cooperation with our suppliers through our demand and with our customers through our range of products and services. METRO sees this as an effective lever to address global challenges and to contribute to sustainable development. This is how we score in terms of sustainable business.

By reconciling our needs and goals with the needs of nature, people and future generations, we can be successful in the long term and overcome the conventional limits to growth for ourselves, our stakeholders and society as a whole.

The guiding principle here is the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) They form the global framework for action in our sustainability activities.

Challenges of an economic, environmental, social and geopolitical nature, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as global challenges such as the growth in the world’s population, with their consequences for resource consumption, the climate and the food situation, are closely linked to our core business. These challenges are thus drivers of the issues that are of greatest importance to our business and define our work along our sustainability approach.

We are working to address these challenges by focusing on what is most material for us. In the interplay of the sCore strategic business strategy and the METRO SUSTAINABLE sustainability approach, we pursue our operational sustainability strategy, or ESG strategy. With it, we want to ensure that we work on the aspects and concerns that have the greatest impact on our business and on which we can have a major influence through our business activities – together with our partners and customers. With our focus on the food sector, our sustainability strategy sets 3 sustainability priorities: climate and carbon, ethics and trust, and equity, inclusion and well-being.

Read more about our sustainability priorities in our proof point stories.