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The Co-operative Group is an organisation that prides itself on being a business with principles. Employing more than 69,000 people in operations that comprise food stores, banking, insurance, funeral care, travel agents, pharmacies and farms, the Co-operative Group now has more than 3000 high street outlets and sales in 2004 topped £7.5 billion.
The Co- Group’s environmental policy is based on the fact that as a business, it has a significant impact on the environment, which has to be managed and minimised wherever possible. It takes carbon management and other environmental measures seriously, allocating responsibility for achieving targets to senior managers within each of its businesses. In fact, the Co-op was one of the first UK businesses to acknowledge publicly the need to cut carbon emissions and has set internal targets for energy and emissions reductions. As part of this commitment, all its carbon dioxide emissions figures are independently audited by KPMG.
Furthermore, every business within the Co-operative Group has an energy and climate change management strategy. These include refurbishment and procurement guidelines to make sure that all electronic equipment, such as lights, refrigeration and air conditioning, is as energy efficient as possible and the requirement that the Energy Technology List is used for all equipment purchases. Moreover, all electricity used by the Co-operative Group is generated by renewable energy sources.
Having set the bar high, the Co-operative Group wanted to see if it could make further improvements to existing activity so asked the Carbon Trust to review its processes and policy and advise on any additional developments. The assessments comprised a number of site surveys and a technical review of plant and equipment specifications as well as an inspection of existing equipment. However, the assessment also looked at how the Co-operative Group is helping its employees to become more energy efficient and cut carbon emissions, so the Carbon Trust carried out a survey of employee attitudes and reviewed the energy efficiency awareness training that was already in place for all employees.
The findings of the Carbon Trust reports were shared with energy managers across the organisation and the Co-operative Group was able to improve on its already strong performance in this area.
The recommendations included:
- Intelligent lighting
- Improved procurement processes
- Improved metering, monitoring & targeting.
- An energy awareness & training programme.
The Co-operative Group is currently in the middle of a programme to refit 250 retail stores per year, as well as embarking on a refurbishment programme for its pharmacy and Funeralcare outlets. The Carbon Trust has provided additional support and advice in this area as refurbishments provide an excellent opportunity to implement energy efficiency and low carbon measures at least cost.
Becky Toal, Environmental Programme Manager at the Co-operative Group, takes up the story. “We already had quite advanced energy efficiency systems in place but the Carbon Trust helped us to refine and improve what we were already doing. We are using their expertise and brains to reduce carbon emissions, become more energy efficient and of course, reduce our energy costs.”
The Co-operative Group is now working with the Carbon Trust to carry out a scoping study on wider procurement, transport and carbon management issues beyond energy efficiency. This could lead to a broader carbon management programme across the business to look carbon emissions generated by all aspects of the organisation, as well as examining legislative considerations.
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