Lidl Great Britain Limited

Is Lidl ethical?

Our research highlights several ethical issues with Lidl, including allegations of workers’ rights issues, failure to tackle emissions from its meat and dairy sales, and inadequate animal welfare policies.

Below we outline of some of these issues. To see the full detailed stories, and Lidl's overall ethical rating, please sign in or subscribe.

People

Lidl has taken some steps to ensure workers’ rights in its supply chain. For example, its supply chain policy outlines expectations for companies in its supply chain, such as respecting workers’ rights to form trade unions, and prohibiting discrimination. It has also published its direct suppliers and some indirect suppliers - a vital step towards transparency, and to ensure that advocacy groups and workers’ rights organisations can hold it to account.

However, the company has also faced a number of criticisms over alleged abuses. In March 2023 Ethical Consumer published the report Produce of Exploitation. It found that fruit and vegetable companies in southern Spain, believed to be supplying to all major UK supermarkets, were committing major labour rights abuses – such as wage theft, unsafe conditions, sexual harassment and forced labour. UK supermarkets, including Lidl, had failed to take adequate action, the report found.

The British Retail Consortium responded to the report on behalf of Lidl and other supermarkets. It stated that it was “not in a position to comment on the claims made”, as it had not seen the report in full prior to publication.

In January 2023, Aberdeen University and the advocacy group Transform Trade published a study on the ways in which global fashion brands were exploiting Bangladesh workers. The study of over 1,000 clothing factories found that multiple companies selling clothing, including Lidl, were ‘engaged in unfair practices’, such as cancelling orders, refusing to pay for goods, reducing prices offered to factories or delaying payments.

German supermarket chain Lidl told the news outlet Al Jazeera that it took the “accusations very seriously”, adding that it “takes its responsibility towards workers in Bangladesh and other countries where our suppliers produce very seriously and is committed to ensuring that core social standards are complied with throughout the supply chain”.

Environment

While Lidl has taken some steps to address its carbon footprint, it scores poorly in Ethical Consumer’s climate rating, with just 30/100 overall.

The brand has worked with suppliers to set carbon targets. Its climate targets align with the Science Based Targets initiative – the primary organisation verifying that corporate targets comply with international climate goals. However, Lidl does not say whether it plans to use offsetting to achieve these, which Ethical Consumer does not consider to be a meaningful way to reduce emissions.

Lidl has been criticised by the environmental advocacy group Feedback Global over its failure to take meaningful steps on meat and dairy emissions. Animal products are likely to be the single largest emissions source from the company’s food sales.

In 2023, Feedback published its 'Greenwash Grocers' report, which found: “Lidl acknowledges the urgent need to tackle climate change, yet it has no statement on meat and dairy’s climate impact or any mention of sustainable diets, let alone any efforts to reduce the sales of these high-emissions products. Instead, it focuses on electricity and transport initiatives, and gimmicky intensity reductions like its 'carbon neutral cheese', all whilst it continues to promote meat and dairy products through prominent positioning on aisles, multibuy deals, advertising, packaging gimmicks, and meaty meal inspiration.”

Lidl also performs poorly on tackling the environmental impact of packaging, scoring just 20/100 in Ethical Consumer’s rating. It has taken some steps for own-brand packaging, cutting plastic packaging by 29% since 2017, but efforts were considered to have been limited overall.

Animals

Lidl has taken limited action to ensure animal welfare and animal rights.

For example, in 2022/23, 38% of its eggs were still from caged chickens. It did not appear to have a policy prohibiting beak trimming – a practice whereby hens’ beaks are cut to limit pecking due to stress and overcrowding. Nor did it appear to have a ‘no-kill male chicks policy’ – to prevent male chicks being killed once they hatched. (Our eggs and egg alternatives shopping guide has more information about these practices.)

The company also has weak policies for welfare in its dairy supply chain.

In the UK, male calves, who cannot produce milk and are therefore often unwanted on dairy farms may be euthanized by slaughterhouses shortly after birth or transported to the EU at a young age to be raised as veal, both raising major welfare concerns. While Lidl has a policy on these ‘surplus calves’, which states they should not be killed if healthy before 8 weeks of age, it only aimed to “reduce” rather than prohibit euthanasia and export of older calves.

Politics and Finances

Lidl also has much room for improvement when it comes to financial ethics.

The company has multiple subsidiaries in tax havens including Hong Kong, Malta and Ireland, which don’t seem to be serving the local population and are high risk for tax avoidance. The company therefore scored 0/100 in Ethical Consumer’s tax conduct rating.

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The text above was written September 2024, and most research was conducted in June 2024.