Honour For Levin New World

Levin New World. The first supermarket in New Zealand to achieve accredited Rata Sustainable Certification.

It is with great pleasure and pride to announce that Levin New World supermarket has been accredited with Rata Sustainable Certification.

This is a great achievement that has taken a real team effort from management and key staff throughout the organisation to implement the foundations of business sustainability within the supermarket.

Together, both management and staff see this accreditation as a ‘seal of approval’ for what has been achieved, which will help cement their commitment well into the future.

As part of a proud New Zealand brand, Levin New World, believes that making decisions in business and taking sustainability into consideration isn’t that difficult once you re-programme yourselves to think that way. “We have been working on our sustainability for the last five years. As part of this journey we won the Electra Business Award for Sustainability in 2010 and this made us more determined to demonstrate our commitment publicly. We are community focused, having a team of over 180, and we are aware of our environmental responsibilities and we do our best to reduce our impact”, said Gwen Bailey, who operates the business alongside her brother Matthew Rollinson.

Now that Levin New World have achieved this milestone they encourage other Foodstuffs supermarkets to follow in their footsteps by implementing business sustainability into their supermarkets and challenge them to improve their environmental, social and economic performance.

Mike Sammons, Foodstuffs New Zealand’s Sustainability Manager commented, “I commend New World Levin’s work to make their store more sustainable. This is well aligned with Foodstuffs wider Sustainability Programme”.

The team at Levin New World would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Bell Tea & Coffee Company who supplies them with coffee beans for their Obsess Café along with other Bell Tea products for also achieving Rata accreditation.

Bell Tea & Coffee Company, along with the Rata community of member businesses also wish to take this opportunity to congratulate Levin New World’s success in achieving accreditation.

The objectives of the Rata Sustainable Certification Programme are three-fold. Namely, to provide businesses an opportunity to implement sustainability into their organisations and build on this to become a foundation that filters and is embedded through all of their operations. Rata provides a structured pathway that does not need a university degree to understand or implement. In other words taking away the ‘fluff’ and getting down to the fundamentals of sustainability, namely, being an ethical business that focuses on their social, environmental and economic continued, improved performance.

Secondly, Rata is focused on their member businesses and the promotion of them to the wider New Zealand business community. This promotion focuses on what these businesses can offer as far as products and services, along with their Rata sustainable achievements and how they can inspire other businesses to follow in their footsteps.

Thirdly, Rata is keen to be a catalyst for change in the New Zealand business community by helping reduce the increasing trend of unsubstantiated claims (green washing) made by businesses concerning their products and services who use clever marketing campaigns to disguise the truth. These organisations build a perception through these targeted marketing campaigns that the principles and practices of sustainability are embedded in the business when in fact is has no relevance to the business’s day-to-day operations.

Which begs the question – are you being green washed by your current or potential suppliers and how would you know?
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