Sainsbury’s: The business case for sustainability

12th May 2015

Sainsbury's is demonstrating leadership and boosting its environmental credentials when it comes to energy and waste by adopting a closed-loop approach.

Behaviour change, on-site generation and smarter systems have helped Sainsbury’s reduce its absolute energy consumption by 17% since 2005, whilst growing the business by 46% over the same period.

In relative terms, Sainsbury’s is now using 27% less energy at its stores than it was 10 years ago; putting the supermarket chain well on-track to achieve its target of a 30% absolute reduction in operational carbon emissions by 30% by 2020.

Speaking to edie after his attendance at the Sustainability Live Conferencelast month, Sainsbury’s head of sustainability Paul Crewe said these latest figures are “cast iron proof that the business case for sustainability does work”.

“Energy is the second-highest cost outside of wages,” said Crewe. “For us, not being operationally efficient in energy would be commercial suicide. Our energy department now completely understands exactly what’s going on with energy right across the estate.”

In this presentation, Crewe went into detail about the Sainsbury’s 20×20 sustainability plan, with an environment timeline and various case studies about how the group is becoming more efficient in its use of resources.

Read the full Paul Crewe interview piece here.

Action inspires action. Stay ahead of the curve with sustainability and energy newsletters from edie

Subscribe