The announcement follows a recent joint webinar with Seafish, the public body that supports the UK seafood industry, in which the retailer introduced the tool, outlined user benefits and detailed its aspirations on how suppliers could use it.
The SCEPT was created by Seafish with extensive industry input and launched in May 2024 and allows seafood businesses to assess carbon footprints for both wild-capture and aquaculture products by inputting supply chain data such as fuel use, processing, packaging and transport.
The tool’s software analyses these data and provides results which seafood businesses can use to identify hotspots where emissions are highest in their supply chains; benchmark performance against industry averages; track progress towards their reduction targets and report carbon data with greater accuracy and transparency.
Ben Lambden, partner and manager for fisheries and aquaculture at Waitrose, said in a press release: “We’re committed to sourcing seafood responsibly and reducing the environmental impact of our supply chains.
“By adopting the SCEPT we will work with our seafood supply chain to receive the data we need to identify carbon hotspots and work with those suppliers to make meaningful reductions.
“We were delighted to see so many of our own seafood supply chain players join the webinar and are encouraged with the response and support to our plans to implement the tool.”
Waitrose’s parent company, The John Lewis Partnership, has made an organisational commitment to work towards net-zero across its operations by 2035 and across its entire supply chain by 2050.
The implementation of the SCEPT into the seafood supply chain will play a key role in those ambitions.
Fellow retailer Tesco has already implemented the tool to its seafood supply chain and Waitrose’s adoption signals further momentum for a UK industry-wide approach to tackling carbon emissions.
Dr Stuart McLanaghan, head of responsible sourcing at Seafish, who led the SCEPT’s development, welcomed the commitment.
He said: “Waitrose’s commitment will further strengthen the UK seafood sector’s support to integrate the tool and we’re also currently working with other leading UK retailers to advise how they too can implement the tool.
“We remain committed to keeping the tool at the cutting edge of science, evolving with industry needs and aspirations.”
Blonk Milieu Advies, a leading international expert in food system sustainability, was commissioned to develop the tool.
To date 125 seafood businesses, and by chilled and frozen volume two-thirds of the UK seafood processing sector, have signed up to use it.
