Alex Holt has held the role of chief sustainability officer at Ahold Delhaize since May 2024, following a career path that has taken her via Woolworths in Australia and New Zealand and Tesco in the UK and Europe – a global perspective that aligns with the breadth of the Dutch retailer’s operations, which span the Benelux region, central and south-eastern Europe, the United States and Indonesia.
“One of the differences from country to country and from region to region is just how culturally different they are in how they work on things like collaboration, which is so important in the sustainability space,” Holt says of her international experience.
“How you go about it in the US, for example, is different from how you would go about it in the Netherlands. The collaboration still matters; it still happens, but it’s more tailored to the cultural dynamics of that country.”
Holt’s first year-and-a-half at Ahold Delhaize, which operates the Albert Heijn, Delhaize, Food Lion and Hannaford banners, among others, has coincided with the retailer making solid progress on its sustainability targets – it repported a 38% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in 2024, compared to a 2018 baseline.
What has been “pleasantly surprising”, however, is the level to which each of the retailer’s brands is engaged on sustainability, with each adapting their approach to local customers while aligning with group strategy.
“We’ve got 17 local brands, and every single one of them has been talking to me positively about sustainability,” she says, adding that as a group, Ahold Delhaize has “done a really good job” at embedding sustainability deep into its operations.
“Not only is it part of our ‘Growing Together’ strategy, but it also flows through to our annual business planning cycle. A couple of years ago, ESG reporting was moved into the finance team. Their expertise and rigour in reporting has added a clear business lens to all the data.”
Value and values
Viewing sustainability through a business lens is all the more important given the constrained circumstances that many shoppers find themselves in at present – making the right choice from a sustainability or health perspective shouldn’t cost more.
“Value is absolutely up there as the most important thing for our customers across our brands, wherever they are,” says Holt. “When you dive into customer research and understand what it meant to them, yes it’s about price, but it’s also about making savvy purchases.”
As she points out, the retailer’s private-label ranges seek to tick several boxes, offering great taste, quality, and health attributes, while integrating sustainability elements like responsible sourcing, deforestation-free commodities, and recyclable packaging.
“We don’t necessarily communicate all of it to the customer, because there’s only so much he or she can actually take in – or wants to take in,” she says. “But it’s about saying, ‘as a brand, this is what we stand for’.”
Making progress
While most of Ahold Delhaize’s sustainability targets align with its Growing Together strategy, through to 2028, the company has made progress on several mid-decade goals, including reducing deforestation in key commodities and cutting reliance on virgin plastics.
“We’re making good progress on reducing deforestation and are already at 100% for several commodities, such as tea and coffee,” says Holt. “For the remaining elements, we are very close – around 97% to 98% – and expect to reach them within the next year.
“The area that’s been more tricky has been on plastics. We’ve made really good progress on our 2025 commitments in virgin plastic packaging reduction – we’re up to a double-digit reduction – but one area where we’ve not made as strong progress is on recycling capability for customers, similar to what the industry as a whole is experiencing.”
This has been hampered by inconsistent recycling infrastructures in the countries in which Ahold Delhaize operates – “there’s a very different setup in, say, the Netherlands, compared to Romania or Serbia,” she says – while the availability of recycled, food-grade plastic is also presenting a challenge.
The retailer is reviewing sorting and sourcing partnerships with suppliers, regulators and manufacturers in each market and is also developing a new circularity strategy.
“We’re working on a circularity strategy, reviewing what progress we’ve made globally through initiatives like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and other groups,” says Holt. “The goal is to determine the next phase, because continuing the current industry-wide approach alone won’t generate enough change. The next shift will require a different way of thinking.”
Shared thinking
With Ahold Delhaize operating across such a varied array of countries and regions, it’s important for the group to maintain a collaborative approach, in which leaders in different markets can come together to share the progress they are making in areas such as health and decarbonisation.
“Across every brand, everyone comes together to discuss most important priorities that we’ve got, sharing best practices, sharing challenges,” says Holt. “In Serbia, for example, a lot of work has been done on food relief for local communities. Similarly, Food Lion in North Carolina and Tennessee runs the Food Lion Feeds program, which has provided millions of meals to local communities. Hannaford, in Maine, focuses heavily on local produce and local farmers. And in the Netherlands and Belgium, our customers are particularly sustainability-focused.
“What that then gives the leaders in the brands is the ability to go, ‘okay, well, what’s most important to my customer, and how do I communicate what’s most important to my customer under that umbrella?'”
This approach also enables successful initiatives to be adopted by the wider group. Holt points to Albert Heijn’s recent launch of climate hubs, which provide supplier resources on decarbonisation, and have been rolled out to other markets.
“It has been tailored to the local brands in Europe, in their local languages, and tailored to their local suppliers. We take what’s working, share the learnings, and quickly roll it out when applicable.”
The Scope 3 challenge
For all businesses – and not just those in retail – reducing Scope 3 emissions is proving a difficult nut to crack, and together with partners, Ahold Delhaize is in the process of rolling out a product-level carbon-footprinting and labelling tool that will provide insight into supplier-level emissions.
In addition, Holt cites regenerative agriculture partnerships with the likes of Campbell’s, Kellanova, General Mills, and Danone, as well as its membership of the W23 Global venture capital fund (alongside Tesco, Woolworths, Empire Company Limited/Sobeys Inc, and Shoprite) as accelerating progress when it comes to Scope 3.
“The key thing is that none of this can be done in isolation,” she says. “This is where forums like The Consumer Goods Forum become important. One of the CGF initiatives we co-lead launched a methodology outlining the data requirements retailers need from CPG companies. Previously, every retailer had slightly different requirements, which created challenges for suppliers. This is a simple thing that can make a big difference.
“But I think the scale of Scope 3, if you view it from a 2050 perspective and consider how the industry is making progress, the annual increments of change are what matter. If I look back at where we are now versus two years ago, significant progress has been made.”
The nearer-term challenge, she adds, is to ensure that this momentum continues and that lessons from each step are applied effectively. That said, the signs are positive, Holt adds, with cross-industry collaboration reaching unprecedented levels.
“It’s about harnessing that passion and that willingness across all industries – how do we really drive this? How do we take this to the next level? That, I think, is going to unlock real progress.”
Learn more about Ahold Delhaize’s sustainability commitments here.
