Our analysis shows that Albert Heijn is making progress in several key areas, and demonstrates the complexity of challenges faced by the retail sector in the Netherlands.
The food system is a leading cause of biodiversity loss and significantly impacts ecosystems and the climate. The WWF-NL Basket, introduced in 2024, is a set of outcomes and measures designed to help retailers in the Netherlands halve the environmental impact of Dutch Baskets by 2030.
Like the WWF-UK Basket, it covers seven key areas: climate, deforestation, agriculture, marine, diets, food waste, and packaging. The definitions and methods used to measure Albert Heijn’s environmental impact are tailored to the Dutch context to reflect national priorities, existing reporting initiatives, and data availability across the supply chain.
Our analysis focuses on Albert Heijn’s progress as the first participating retailer. The report shows that Albert Heijn is making progress across most themes, though faster action is needed in areas such as deforestation, marine, climate, and food waste to achieve 2030 targets.
Albert Heijn has made significant strides in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from its operations and energy use; these emissions have fallen by 90%, already exceeding its 2030 target.
However, absolute emissions in the supply chain – arising from the production, transport, and use of products – increased by 17%, primarily due to sales growth. Progress towards increasing the percentage of plant-based protein sales to 60% by 2030 is also slow, and has even declined slightly from 43.9% in 2023 to 43.7% in 2024.
The Basket offers a practical approach for organisations like Albert Heijn to measure progress in reducing the environmental impact of their shopping basket. This will support WWF-NL to inform and inspire wider action across the broader (national and international) supermarket retail sector as well as other key food system stakeholders, including food businesses, suppliers, and policymakers.
Download the report (in Dutch) on the WWF-NL website here – https://business.wwf.nl/nl/actueel/nieuws/albert-heijn-boekt-vooruitgang-op-duurzaamheidsthemas