Tesco and the WWF have both denied that a report highlighting how intensive chicken production was ravaging the River Wye has been pulled as a result of their ongoing partnership.
Conservation and wildlife charity WWF has received over £6m in donations from Tesco since 2018, as part of a partnership focused on combating environmental problems throughout the food system. Tesco provided funding between £500,00 and £2m every year to the charity.
According to the Observer, WWF-UK pulled a report that warned how intensive chicken production is damaging the River Wye “to keep Tesco happy”, as much of the pollution was linked to the supermarket’s supply chain.
The report, called ‘Feeling the Bite’, was set to be published in the summer of 2022 and would have included the impact of intensive chicken farming on the river. It warned that a broken food system was putting an impossible strain on nature.
Tesco has previously faced criticism from campaigners, as many of many of the intensive poultry farms in the river’s catchment area are in the supermarket’s supply chain.
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One source told the Observer the proposed report was pulled after concerns were raised about the potential fallout.
They said: “Shelving the report was completely the wrong thing to do. They didn’t want to rock the boat. The attitude was: “We’re going after a partner. What’s the point?’”
The source also said the report was postponed and the Wye case study removed amid concerns that environmental campaigners would highlight WWF’s partnership with Tesco.
A decision was later taken to shelve the report completely, as once the Wye case study had been removed, questions were raised about the report’s overall strength.
WWF also has corporate partnerships with HSBC Aviva and NatWest, and the pulling of the report highlights the complications which arise from corporate partnerships.
Any link between pulling the report and the partnership between Tesco and WWF has been denied by both parties.
A WWF spokesperson said: “We are a science-led organisation and on reviewing drafts of the report, we concluded that it did not meet our rigorous standards. The decision not to proceed with this report was not connected to any individual case study within it or our relationships with partners.
“We are deeply concerned by the devastating impact that pollution is having on the UK’s rivers, particularly the Wye, and have taken the government to court over its failure to act on river pollution. We continue to work to drive action to tackle the food system’s impacts on the environment, both in the UK and overseas.”
A Tesco spokesperson said: “This report was not part of our work with WWF and we were not involved in its development, nor any decisions about publishing it. The work of our partnership with WWF was aimed at tackling the biggest environmental impacts of our food system, including helping to protect water quality and biodiversity in supply chains.
“We’re committed to playing our part in protecting the River Wye, alongside other actors across the food industry, and have worked closely with local stakeholders since 2019 to tackle water pollution in the area.”
