Harris Farm Markets saves time and drives supply chain action with Watershed

CHALLENGE

Scaling climate work with a lean team

Harris Farm Markets is a family-owned grocery retailer with more than 30 stores across New South Wales, Queensland, and the Australian Capital Territory. Known for its “more market than supermarket” approach, Harris Farm sources fresh produce daily through the Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne Markets, maintaining short supply chains that prioritize freshness, quality, and closer relationships with growers.

Sustainability has long been an integral part of Harris Farm’s identity. Its launch of Australia’s first “Imperfect Picks” range, aimed at reducing food waste, is one example of how its leadership has consistently emphasized a triple bottom line—doing what’s good for business, good for people, and good for the planet. That values-led approach set the foundation for a more ambitious, internally owned climate program.

That program—and its sustainability ambition—spans 11 focus areas, managed by a team of just two. Carbon footprinting was essential, but it couldn’t become the team’s primary job.

Before Watershed, Harris Farm relied on external consultants to complete its carbon footprint. The process was slow, resource-intensive, and difficult to scale internally, and the team didn’t want to accept this status quo. “A lot of sustainability teams spend the majority of their time just carbon footprinting,” says Sustainability Manager Ellie Davies. “We wanted it to be the tiniest part of our work, not the biggest.”

At the same time, regulatory pressure was increasing. The team was preparing for the Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards (ASRS) and considering whether they needed to run a costly audit dry run to feel confident in their disclosures. With limited internal capacity, Harris Farm needed a way to meet regulatory requirements without slowing down the rest of its sustainability agenda.

“We have a team of two and a strategy with eleven focus areas. We couldn’t afford for carbon footprinting to take over everything else.”

Ellie Davies,
Sustainability Manager

SOLUTION

Bringing carbon measurement in-house with confidence

Harris Farm chose Watershed to bring its carbon footprinting in-house and build a more robust, audit-ready foundation for climate reporting.

Watershed’s platform made it easier to collect, structure, and validate data across the business—reducing manual effort and minimizing opportunities for human error. For Davies, the platform’s audit-readiness was a decisive factor. “As long as the data we’re providing is correct, there’s so much less that can go wrong,” she explains.

Because Watershed’s methodology is audited by a third party, the team felt confident skipping an audit dry run altogether. “It took a lot of stress out of the process,” Davies says. “We trusted the transparency in the calculations and the way everything was documented.”

Beyond compliance, Watershed’s supply chain and drill-down capabilities stood out. The team could slice and analyze emissions data by product, supplier, and store—unlocking insights they simply couldn’t access through spreadsheets or consultant reports.

“Watershed had everything built in—ASRS reporting, auditability, and the ability to really drill into our data. It was an easy business case.”

Kate Haselhoff,
Head of Sustainability

RESULTS

Streamlining footprinting to focus on what matters

The shift to Watershed dramatically changed how Harris Farm approaches carbon measurement.

The company’s first internally-managed footprint took approximately six months, largely due to data collection challenges and back-and-forth with internal teams. By the second year, using Watershed, the bulk of the footprint was completed in just one month.

“That speed came from experience, but also from having the right structure in place,” Davies explains. “I knew what data I needed, what format it had to be in, and where the issues were from the year before. Watershed made it easy to repeat the process without repeating the mistakes.”

Turning measurement into action across the business

Those time savings have had a meaningful ripple effect. Instead of spending months on measurement, the sustainability team can now focus on using emissions data to drive action across the business. Harris Farm is actively using Watershed insights to identify its most carbon-intensive products and suppliers, supporting more informed conversations with buyers and guiding supplier engagement.

The platform has also become a key input into operational planning. Harris Farm is using store-level energy data to understand which locations are most energy intensive relative to their size, how energy use changes year over year, and where efficiency initiatives could have the greatest impact. These insights are informing the company’s upcoming energy efficiency plan.

At the same time, Watershed has strengthened Harris Farm’s regulatory readiness. The team has used Watershed’s ASRS reporting tools to shape its response to new disclosure requirements, reducing preparation time and increasing confidence ahead of future audits.

For Davies, the biggest shift is philosophical as much as operational. “Carbon footprinting is always an estimate,” she says. “What matters is having a good enough estimate that lets you see whether your decarbonization efforts are working.”

By investing in technology to streamline measurement, Harris Farm has freed up scarce resources to focus on what comes next: reducing emissions, engaging suppliers, and embedding sustainability more deeply across the business.

“If there’s one place in a sustainability program where it’s worth investing in technology, it’s carbon footprinting. The time you get back is so worth it.”

Ellie Davies,
Sustainability Manager