Make the most of the CRC – Sainsbury’s

This was the core message of Julius Brinkworth, head of energy and environment at Sainsbury’s when he spoke on the CRC at a London event this week.

Addressing delegates at the Low Carbon Conference event, Mr Brinkworth said that the CRC was likely to be the first of many pieces of regulation of its kind and that those affected would do well to treat it as a learning exercise so that they will be on top of future waves of regulation.

He pointed out that it tracked absolute energy use, not emissions-by-turnover or any other metric that takes into account expansion – or shrinking – of business so argued that energy managers in successful companies could have a hard time showing energy reductions, even if energy efficiency had improved on a site by site basis.

He advised fellow energy managers to use the opportunity to look at their organisation’s performance with fresh eyes, saying that no matter how well they think they know their operations, there will always be something that can be done to improve performance further at some sites.

Sainsbury’s employs a large team of ‘really good’ energy managers, he added, but still managed to squeeze further savings of 15% on average out of each site visited and given a CRC-makeover.

“Make sure the compliance is absolutely nailed,” he said.

“This isn’t something you can avoid, it’s going to happen and you’ve got to understand it and take responsibility.”

Sam Bond