Malcolm Walker, the founder and his son Richard Walker the current chairman are (for such an ordinary seeming supermarket) surprisingly progressive and have often spearheaded sustainability and corporate responsibility campaigns. Malcolm Walker was an active member of Greenpeace and Iceland worked with Greenpeace on several campaigns over the years.
Richard Walker tried to become a Conservative MP, but when no constituency party selected him as their candidate defected to Labour, who put him in the House of Lords.