We continue to work to drive improvements in our emissions, reduce waste, and promote the use of more regenerative farming practices by farmers in the Primark Cotton Project. Beyond these areas, we’re supporting our suppliers to use water responsibly and encouraging more sustainable chemicals management.
In 2018, we developed an approach to energy with the aim of reducing energy demand in our own operations.
In 2021, we announced our Primark Cares 2030 target to halve emissions in our operations and supply chain against our baseline year of 2018/19.
As we don’t own any factories in our goods for resale supply chain, where 72% of our baseline emissions occur, we focused on initiatives to boost suppliers' efficiency while lowering their costs by conducting small-scale pilots and engaging with industry bodies and third parties to establish a viable roadmap for decarbonisation.
Having identified the decarbonisation levers we can influence, we have spent the last two years testing and trialling our initiatives at sufficient scale to determine the most impactful role we can play in supporting our supply chain in decarbonising, as well as improving the quality of our emissions data. Going beyond small-scale pilots is vital to making a significant impact, as mitigating the breadth of Scope 3 emissions requires wider and deeper engagement.
Phase Two concludes this year. Alongside our resource efficiency and renewable energy programmes in our goods for resale supply chain, Phase Two has already provided valuable learnings that will inform our approach to Phase Three and how we plan to deliver impact reduction at scale.
As we conclude Phase Two of our decarbonisation programme we plan to use any learnings from these initiatives to reshape our projects and deliver impact at a greater scale.
Our aim is to continue our decarbonisation strategy with a focus on the areas where we can have the most material impact for both our business and the industry.
A more detailed roadmap is disclosed through our annual Transition Plan.
| Baseline 2018/19 | Last Year 2023/24 | Current Year 2024/25 | Change against last year | Change against baseline year | |
| GHG Protocol Category | tCO2e | tCO2e | tCO2e | % | % |
| Scope 1 | 20,602 | 23,154 | 18,326 | -21% | -11% |
| Scope 2 (Location-Based) | 139,841 | 85,406 | 86,598 | 1% | -38% |
| Scope 2 (Market- Based) | 53,795 | 28,375 | -47% | -80% | |
| Scope 1&2 (Market- Based) | 160,443 | 76,949 | 46,701 | -39% | -71% |
| Scope 3 | 6,246,005 | 6,210,586 | 5,993,349Δ | -3.5% | -4.0% |
| TOTAL GHG Emissions (Scope 1, 2 (Market) & 3) | 6,406,448 | 6,287,535 | 6,040,050Δ | -3.9% | -5.7%Δ |
This reduction is principally down to two factors. The most significant is the increase in data we are receiving from factories in our supply chain as a result of our traceability programme and environmental initiatives, which show lower carbon impact against industry benchmarking data, the latter we previously relied on. The second is measured reductions in parts of our supply chain where we have a high degree of influence, such as in tier one of our supply chain and inbound logistics.
1 Scope 2 figures for 2018/19 to 2021/22 represent location-based emissions. For the purpose of reporting against targets, Primark has been tracking Scope 2 (market-based) emissions since 2022/23.
Primark aims to achieve 100% renewable electricity for Scope 2 emissions by 2030, in line with the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action.
Scope: Emissions generated from owned or controlled sources, by running our stores, offices and distribution depots.
Impact: <1% of our total carbon footprint (2024/25)
Targets:
reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 50% by 2030 from a 2018/19 base year (Primark Cares commitment and SBTi-validated target).
secure 100% of electricity from renewable sources with minimal other environmental or social impacts, for owned and operated (Scope 2) emissions by 2030 (UNFCCC FICCA target).
For the second year in a row, we have surpassed the threshold of our 2030 SBTi-validated target to keep absolute Scope 1 and 2 (market-based) emissions1 at least 50% lower than they were in our 2018/19 base year, with a 71% reduction in emissions (market based) achieved. Maintaining this reduction may be challenging in the short term due to our continued growth and renewable power procurement challenges in some of our markets. A significant proportion of our growth is focussed on the US market over the coming years. Due to its unregulated nature, power sources can be challenging to decarbonise at a local and state level. We are actively investigating opportunities to continue our renewable energy procurement with regional partners and suppliers on a case-by-case basis.
Most was purchased from the grid through renewable energy certificates that align with the strict criteria of the RE100, the global corporate renewable energy initiative. As a result, our Scope 2 market-based emissions (based on our actual energy purchasing decisions) are lower than our location-based emissions (based on the average intensity of the grid), giving a more accurate picture.
Where possible, we are looking at transitioning to power purchase agreements as these contracts indirectly fund additional renewable energy capacity. While we work towards this longer-term procurement goal, we have been in discussion with landlords about the possibility of incorporating renewable energy sources in our retail stores and depots.
We have been rolling out a multi-year project to retrofit all our stores across our footprint with LED lighting. As of July 2025, the project covered 323 stores with an average electricity saving of 35% compared to pre-implementation levels.
We continue to look for ways to make further energy-efficiency improvements that will reduce our carbon footprint without impacting the shopping experience. All our stores and distribution centres are now certified to ISO 50001, the globally recognised standard for energy management systems.
1 Scope 2 emissions for the 2018/19 baseline year were calculated using the location-based method, which uses location-specific grid-average emissions factors. As we did not procure any renewable or low carbon power at that time, it is considered an appropriate methodology to establish baseline impact. For 2024/25, we are reporting under the market-based method, taking into account our energy contracts and their associated emissions factors. We consider this to be a more accurate calculation method that can reflect the improved emissions performance achieved from renewable energy procurement.
Scope: Emissions in our value chain that we don’t directly control, especially related to the manufacturing of our products by suppliers, transporting goods from our sourcing regions to our depots, and the way consumers use and dispose of our products
Impact: >99% of our total carbon footprint (2024/25)
Target: Reduce absolute Scope 3 GHG emissions from purchased goods and services by 50% by 2030 against a 2018/19 baseline (SBTi-validated target).
Our total Scope 3 emissions fell by 3.5% this year and decreased by 4% against our 2018/19 baseline. Scope 3 Category 1 emissions, the basis of our validated Scope 3 SBTi target, fell 5% versus last year but increased by 2% against our baseline.
As we conclude Phase Two of our decarbonisation work, our supply chain engagement and decarbonisation programmes are starting to yield modest yet positive results. This year, we significantly increased the amount of emissions data we received from our suppliers, enabling us to produce more accurate impact figures for our supply chain at both tier one and tier two, leading to a more accurate Scope 3 calculation. This enhanced primary data showed that key areas of our supply chain have a lower carbon impact than the industry average figures we had previously been using.
However, we still rely on industry-average emissions factors to calculate our Scope 3 emissions, and the resulting data limitations should be considered when interpreting our performance. We are closely monitoring the influence of data sources used in our calculations on the changes in our overall footprint.
| Scope 3 Category | Baseline 2018/19 | Previous Year 2023/24 | Current Year 2024/25 | % Change from previous year | % Change from Baseline |
| Cat 01: Purchased Goods and Services | 4,771,324 | 5,138,034 | 4,880,656 | -5.0% | 2% |
| Cat 02: Capital Goods | 123,393 | 115,174 | 101,472 | -12% | -18% |
| Cat 03: Fuel and Energy Related Activities | 34,904 | 20,401 | 21,382 | 5% | -39% |
| Cat 04: Upstream Transportation | 506,663 | 289,054 | 310,130 | 7% | -39% |
| Cat 05: Waste Generated in Operations | 4,297 | 4,468 | 6,589 | 47% | 53% |
| Cat 06: Business Travel | 10,573 | 8,618 | 5,333 | -38% | -50% |
| Cat 07: Employee commuting | 2,818 | 5,482 | N/A | N/A | |
| Cat 11: Use of Sold Products | 756,260 | 576,106 | 607,428 | 5% | -20% |
| Cat 12: End of Life Treatment of Sold Products | 38,591 | 35,055 | 36,444 | 4% | -6% |
| Cat 13: Downstream leased assets | 20,857 | 18,433 | N/A | N/A | |
| Total | 6,246,005 | 6,210,586 | 5,993,349Δ | -3.5% | -4.0% |
We again targeted our efforts this year on the following emissions categories, which accounted for 96.7% of our Scope 3 footprint.
Our emission reduction work centres on engaging with our suppliers who manufacture our products. We are also aligning our material sourcing and circular product strategies with our emissions reduction targets.
Over the past three years, we’ve assessed a total of 97 factories across Bangladesh, China and India as part of Primark's Resource Efficiency Programme. This is a holistic initiative, in partnership with external consultants, aimed at identifying ways our suppliers can use energy, water and chemicals more efficiently to cut their carbon and costs.
The work over the past year has been focused on using our learnings to date to look at scalable solutions, as we work towards meeting Primark’s 2030 carbon target. This has involved site visits and creation of reports, and setting long-term plans with factories for continued progress after the project has ended.
The programme has identified significant GHG emissions and water reduction potential, informing how we will modify and deploy the programme over the next five years.
We continue to support suppliers in switching to renewable electricity by providing advice and connecting them to third-party schemes. This approach has been created following findings from a collective solar procurement project in Tamil Nadu, India where we found that guidance on the availability of renewable solutions was the most effective approach for the factories we work with.
We’ve built on this approach in China, where we co-authored a study with the China Textile Information Center and energy consultants AFRY, to assess the feasibility of direct investment in renewable energy for textile industry decarbonisation. The study, which we also co-sponsored alongside HSBC and the China Climate Fund, identified credible and financially viable procurement options in six Chinese provinces. These will enable our suppliers in those regions to make more informed decisions on sourcing renewable electricity.
Like most international retailers, we source our products from markets across the world. The way we transport these products from our sourcing countries to our depots affects the amount of carbon we emit across our value chain.
For the first time this year, 98% of our ocean freight inbound product to the UK was transported to our depots using a low-carbon fuel, thanks to our partnership with road freight provider Maritime Transport. Hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) is a diesel alternative derived primarily from used cooking oils. Its usage has helped us avoid around 4,700 tCO2e, making a significant contribution to the reduction in our overall road freight emissions.
Over the past year we have initiated an assessment of the material risks that climate change poses to our business, under a range of global warming scenarios.
We are also exploring the best ways to embed climate risk management into our strategic approach to strengthen our long-term resilience. We plan to continue and expand these activities into next year, meanwhile, ABF continues to disclose at an aggregated Group level under the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework.
Every year, we put our Chinese supply chain through the Green Supply Chain Corporate Information Transparency Index (CITI). Using government and publicly available brand data, it assesses brands on the environmental management of their supply chains in the country and has been published annually by China’s Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) since 2014.
Primark improved its CITI score in 2025, ranking fifth among all 800 brands assessed.
This is the result of our continuous efforts to improve the environmental performance of suppliers in China beyond our tier one factories.
This figure has declined 2% due to our expansion to the US, where waste disposal methods make recycling more difficult. We are working to improve recycling rates across our US stores by using our own country-wide waste provider.
Beyond our US stores, we are working to standardise waste management across Primark operations and to educate colleagues on how retail and head office waste can be reused and recycled. This year, we completed our global rollout of waste bins to enable segregation and recycling in every store, office and depot.
In 2021, we committed to eliminating single-use plastic by 2027. Since then, we’ve redesigned our packaging and collaborated with our suppliers to minimise their use of single-use plastic.
However, eliminating single-use plastic isn’t as simple as switching to a less impactful alternatives for all our products. For example, we need plastic packaging to protect items, preserve their quality and, for some items, for hygiene and safety. Some alternatives are not yet at the scale that we need to be cost-effective for our customers.
There are other steps we can take while packaging innovations develop such as making packaging smaller, using thinner materials and more recycled plastic and making sure more of our packaging can be recycled. We’re also questioning every packaging component to remove unnecessary plastic, such as tags, and problematic plastic that makes it challenging to recycle items, like mixed materials. It’s a journey and more difficult than we anticipated, but we are proud of what we have learned and the changes we’ve made to date.
1 Data relates to 2024 year. We have used an extrapolated methodology where we don't have supplier data.
2 Bottles, jars, caps, lids (6%), attachers/ties (4%), tape (4%), boxes, cartons, sleeves, blisters (3%), other (6%).
3 Other materials include glass, metal, composites, wood.
Plastic hangers have been a major focus in our ambition to reduce single-use plastic in our business. We have moved to recycled plastic hangers across clothing and accessories where possible or replaced them with fully recyclable cardboard. We have also converted to mono-material plastic packaging for some products, such as for our health and beauty face wipes, because this is easier to recycle.
In 2024, we started rolling out new recyclable plastic clothing hangers, which are made with 90% GRS recycled propylene plastic. We launched these hangers through nominated suppliers, who are selected to provide a specific item of packaging allowing us to standardise hanger types in circulation.
Over the past three years, we have audited over 100 factories in Bangladesh, China and India, and identified cost-effective ways they can reduce water withdrawal.
The table below shows the current breakdown of identified potential savings across all facilities assessed under Primark’s dedicated water efficiency programmes:
Region |
Potential Savings Identified (m3) |
Bangladesh |
898,826 |
China |
310,230 |
India |
49,112 |
To drive further action on responsible water management practices in our supply chain, we began incorporating related metrics into our supplier scorecard for our top 100 strategic suppliers. We were encouraged to see that:
This year, we launched our Cleaner Water Programme, focusing on four key areas.
Over and above complying with local and any other applicable environmental laws, we’re promoting more responsible practices for chemical management and water stewardship, including wastewater discharge.
Our suppliers must comply with our Restricted Substances List, which aligns with that of the Zero Discharge of Harmful Chemicals (ZDHC) Foundation.
We’re committed to achieving compliance against the ZDHC Wastewater Guidelines in our supply chain. This year, as part of the Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution programme, we began projects to trial more advanced treatment technologies that enable the removal of micro-pollutants and allow for wastewater to be recycled and reused in the production process again.
We continue to co-develop new tools to better understand our water quality impacts in key river basins. Working with Oxford Molecular Biosensors this year, we mapped factory discharges in the Meghna basin in Bangladesh and modelled their combined effect on water quality, helping us prioritise action. We also supported the development of a biosensor that gives a quick, holistic view of water toxicity, enabling us to better understand broader impacts on biodiversity and to conduct testing more efficiently.
Through our partnerships with the Microfibre Consortium and ZDHC Foundation, we’ve helped develop a methodology for measuring microfibres in wastewater. We are also working with suppliers to refine their processes for removing these microscopic plastic-based fibres shed by certain synthetic materials.
Water cannot be managed in isolation. We collaborate with others across industry and civil society to tackle the water challenges we share with nature, communities and other businesses.
We have identified 10 basins where our water footprint intersects with globally recognised risks and impact opportunities. Through our work with the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS), as well as the Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution Programme, we are currently activating projects in three of these basins across Bangladesh, India and China.
Through AWS’s Impact Accelerator programme, over the past two years we have helped 20 suppliers assess shared water-related challenges in their catchments and develop plans to help address them. In what is the largest programme of its kind in the textile sector, we are supporting the factories to attain leadership-level scores against the AWS Standard, which involves indicators across biodiversity, water access, use and pollution. So far, participating factories have increased their performance scores from an average baseline of 48% to over 80%.
This year, we became a member the Water Leaders Group consisting of textile brands, which aims to collectively influence the supply chain to adopt more sustainable practices. Our first output was a supply chain framework, peer-reviewed by AWS, ZDCH and Cascale (formerly Sustainable Apparel Coalition), designed to fast-track the adoption of best practices.
This year, we signed the CEO Water Mandate within the UN Global Compact, committing ourselves to work collectively with others to contribute towards basin-level water resilience in shared supply chain regions.
To help us improve chemicals management across our supply chain, we are active members of two key organisations.
A multi-stakeholder organisation of brands, suppliers, solution providers and chemical suppliers, leading the fashion industry to eliminate harmful chemicals from its global supply chain. Primark is represented on the Foundation’s board, and in 2025 we joined its Advisory Groups Leaders Forum, established to foster dialogue and collaboration between all the 320 ZDHC signatories.
Primark’s Restricted Substances List sets strict limits on chemicals used in manufacturing our products. It aligns with the ZDHC Manufacturing Restricted Substances List and was updated in 2024 to also align with that of the AFIRM Group.
Every year, our chemicals management programme is independently assessed on behalf of the ZDHC Group against its Brands to Zero Programme, evaluating our progress towards achieving more sustainable chemicals management across the value chain. For example, it assesses how many of the wet processor factories we use are registered on the ZDHC Gateway, the world’s largest database dedicated to enabling safer choices of chemical products for the textile, apparel and footwear industry. Through this database, suppliers can source certified chemicals, assess their chemicals inventory against ZDHC’s restricted substances list, easily share verified wastewater data and more.
In 2024, we enhanced our understanding and reporting capabilities of ZDHC data by deploying a suite of dashboards that capture Brands to Zero supply chain performance metrics. In addition, chemistry KPIs were rolled out through our supplier vendor scorecard, with further criteria for wastewater performance. We piloted chemicals inventory software at non-wet processing tier one facilities, broadening data collection beyond the ZDHC programme.
We have regional environmental teams based in key sourcing regions to provide suppliers with training and support on chemicals management. This year:
Chemicals management is fundamental to the success of our water stewardship programme, launched this year as a joint strategic effort of our Chemistry and Water teams. We are working with ZDHC and industry partners to develop shared approaches for more sustainable wastewater, focusing on improving chemicals performance while boosting energy and water efficiency.
Primark also piloted the Apparel Impact Institute’s Clean by Design Chemistry and Wastewater Programme at three facilities in Bangladesh in 2024. This work concluded with measurable improvements across chemicals usage, energy consumption and water withdrawal.
Since 2013, through the Primark Cotton Project we’ve trained 309,934Δ cotton farmers in our supply chain on farming practices that help to reduce the environmental impact of growing cotton and strengthen farmers’ livelihoods and resilience.
This flagship initiative has evolved to become the largest programme of its kind by a single fashion retailer. Based on a curriculum devised by agronomic experts CottonConnect, the training is delivered through local partners in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Türkiye. Nine out of 10 participants are smallholders1 and over 80% are women.
Although the Primark Cotton Project has always promoted best practices such as biological alternatives to synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, the focus on encouraging farmers in the programme to adopt more regenerative agricultural practices has grown in recent years.
Since 2023, the Primark Cotton Project’s curriculum has been based on CottonConnect’s REEL Regenerative Code, which sets out agronomic best practice across the growing and harvesting cycle. The curriculum has been further validated through review by agronomic experts at Harper Adams University. The practices taught are designed to work in sync with nature, aiming to improve soil health, enhance biodiversity and preserve water, which in turn supports the continued viability of cotton farming.
As of March 2025, over 90% of farmers in the Primark Cotton Project have adopted at least two agricultural practices that are considered ‘more regenerative’ on their farmland.
These have included:
Understanding local dynamics is vital to supporting effective regenerative agriculture. For example, 70% of programme farmers who rear livestock can make use of it as farmyard manure. This is a valuable natural fertiliser that supports soil health and offers a cost-effective alternative to purchased and synthetic inputs.
We plan to use these insights to support farmer groups to adopt practices tailored to their regions. Through our new ’graduate’ training programme, which delivers training to all farmers who have been through the three-year foundational training programme, we will be providing more targeted support to support adoption of such practices.
Over the last year, we have been working with Impactt, a consultancy firm specialising in understanding and managing human rights issues. Our work with Impactt has focused on building a human rights due diligence (HRDD) framework for the Primark Cotton Project, based on the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector.
During the initial stages, we have worked with CottonConnect at a strategic level to build a gap analysis and understand the roles and responsibilities of the different actors in the cotton supply chain. Impactt has also developed a monitoring framework, based on our Supplier Code of Conduct. This includes building out a methodology for field level assessments, the different way our partners define the severity of risks and potential response pathways.
In 2023, we piloted this framework in Türkiye on large-scale farms, where the main risks identified related to wages and occupational health and safety. We are now piloting the framework for smallholder farmers in India.
It is likely to be several years before we see the impacts of the Primark Cotton Project farmer training on levels of biodiversity in our Primark Cotton Project sourcing regions. To help us measure these impacts, we have a Biodiversity Monitoring Programme aligned to guidelines from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and frameworks such as Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN) and the Task force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). After design and pilot stages, monitoring began in March 2024 with surveys on 14 farms spread over five villages in the Indian state of Gujarat, working with our consultant partners Biodiversify and the Srushti Conservation Foundation.
Two of the villages contained Primark Cotton Project farms and three were control villages where farmers had not been trained in more regenerative agricultural practices. In each village, the farms and an area of natural habitat were monitored so that we could see how the farms performed in comparison.
We monitored plant and animal species and tested soil organic for carbon content as an indicator of soil biodiversity. We also assessed local farmers on their level of understanding about biodiversity and captured their observations about changes in the abundance of important species.
This year, regenerative agriculture experts at Harper Adams University reviewed the methodology of our Biodiversity Monitoring Programme against global best practice. We will review and incorporate the output of this review into our future work.
To maintain and scale farm monitoring over time, we are exploring a range of approaches and solutions. This has included working with our Primark Cotton Project partners in India, the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), which this year trained more than 31 of its field executives and coordinators in Gujarat with the skills and techniques for surveying biodiversity on farms.
1 Based on a definition from ISEAL, a smallholder farm in the developing world is typically a family-owned enterprise that produces crops or livestock on two or less hectares.
