J. Sainsbury plc consists of Sainsbury’s – a chain of 525 supermarkets and 303 convenience stores across the UK – and Sainsbury’s Bank. The company’s supermarkets are the UK’s longest standing major food retailing chain, having opened its first store back in 1869. Sainsbury’s now serves over 18.5 million customers a week, and recently developed a “carbon-negative” store extension to a Durham branch, giving the store a 50% increase in space, but allowing its energy use to drop by 10%.

Jack Cunningham is Environmental Affairs Manager for Sainsbury’s.

What does your job involve?

My job involves driving and steering Sainsbury’s climate and environment strategy across the business at senior level, encompassing everything from operations to products to customers. It involves building collaborative relationships between different business teams, helping to make the strategy commercially viable, and finally communicating our achievements.

What measures are in place within the company to lower carbon emissions and energy usage?

We have been leading the retail sector on the reduction of carbon emissions, long before climate change became a public policy issue, putting measures in place to reduce our energy use in stores, as early as 1984. Sainsbury’s leads the way on environmental store innovation and we now have had a dedicated eco-store programme since 1999 when we opened the UK’s first dedicated ‘green’ store at Greenwich. We now have five stand-alone eco-stores; our latest at Westhoughton in Lancashire has Europe’s first biomass generator.

Eco-stores provide the test-bed for future technologies but our RESET programme raises the energy efficiency of our existing stores. The programme involves re-visiting each store and finding ways to cut energy use through simple measures such as adding better lighting and controls, or through training courses for colleagues.

Within our supply chain we work very closely with our key agricultural suppliers to help them reduce their environmental impact, encompassing climate change issues, alongside other environmental issues such as soil erosion, water use and biodiversity. Our ‘Dairy Development Group’ uses the UK’s only Carbon Trust PAS2050-certified dairy carbon footprint model and has saved over 5,000 tonnes of carbon and nearly £10m in costs for our farmers. Based on this supply chain model we are able to secure supply chains more easily, build closer, collaborative relationships and roll carbon reduction programmes out to our other key lines such as beef, pork, chicken, cheese and crops.

Is it difficult to sustain a solid environmental strategy considering the number of branches and staff in Sainsbury’s?

Respect for our environment is one of our core company values. Developing a strong and comprehensive strategy is hard for any business that is large and growing. However, with strong leadership, ownership from the top and engaged colleagues we can certainly succeed. Corporate strategy must at some point deliver at the customer level, so engaging our colleagues in stores is very important. We do this through store ‘huddles’, colleague listening sessions, ‘make the difference days’ (events we hold in store with colleagues to engage customers) and through our company journal, as well as bespoke training programmes.

What have been the most significant challenges you’ve faced in the drive to reduce carbon emissions at Sainsbury’s?

Going forward, the challenge will be to meet the requirement for all commercial buildings to be zero carbon by 2019, but we are already planning for the ‘store of the future’ and have a commercial R&D partnership with Imperial College and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change to help us deliver significant carbon savings well before this date.

Do you think that Government targets of a UK-wide 26% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 and 80% by 2050 are achievable?

The 26% reduction is likely to go to 34% so it is even more stretching. The challenge for the UK is to cut emissions without damaging productivity or growth. To decouple emissions from growth requires some fundamental changes in energy generation, hence the debate over nuclear power, decentralised energy and carbon capture and storage. However, as lifestyles continue to become more complex, technology driven and consumer focused, the biggest challenge still lies in domestic emissions. It is not clear how far governments are prepared to go to curb consumer behaviour in pursuit of emissions reductions. I have concerns that carbon reporting/accounting, sectoral budgets and product labelling will all be prioritised ahead of consumer action, putting yet further pressure on business and supply chains.

Do you encourage customers to become more carbon-aware?

Our customers are increasingly environmentally conscious, so we have to make sure that we are in a position to respond to their concerns and to make it easier for them to be more green.

One of the ways in which we do this is through our regular Make the Difference Days, on which we focus on a single issue and communicate on it with customers in-store. We’ve given away low energy light bulbs, free ‘bags for life’, and next month, we’ll be giving away 400,000 milk jugs to be used with our milk bags, which use 75 per cent less packaging than a plastic bottle.

We are always keen to communicate with our customers on environmental issues.

How receptive are staff to carbon reduction and environmental issues?

If environmental initiatives we introduce to stores are to be successful, it is absolutely key that our colleagues in store are aware of the issues and able to engage with customers on them. The introduction of our Zero Food Waste to Landfill Network required a complete overhaul of the way in which stores deal with waste and the fact that it was implemented so smoothly shows that colleagues are quick to understand the issues and keen to respond by doing their bit.

Another good example is the introduction of milk in bags. Before the product arrived on shelves, we gave samples to all colleagues in stores, to make sure that they were able to use it. As a result of this, colleagues became brilliant ambassadors for the product and sales have rocketed to 110,000 units a week, twice as much as we originally expected.

Does Sainsbury’s address the issue of its supply chain carbon emissions?

We are constantly working with our suppliers to find ways to reduce the carbon footprint of the products on our shelves.

One of the most notable examples is the work we have undertaken with our dairy farmers through the Sainsbury’s Dairy Development Group, which has won several awards. We’re now introducing it to farmers in other areas of our business.

Another good example is the work we do on palm oil. We were recently placed at the top of the WWF’s palm oil scorecard for the work we’ve done with our suppliers to source certified sustainable palm oil for use in many of our products. We are the industry leader in this area and the work we’ve done has prompted many of our competitors to follow suit.

What have been your proudest low-carbon achievements to date?

It is difficult to pick out any single issues that we are most proud of. Lowering carbon in a business of our size means that some of the smallest changes can make a massive difference in carbon terms. We look at carbon in all areas of our business from how we build new stores to how we transport products, to what we put in the food we make.

What advice would you give to other professionals trying to reduce carbon?
Build a well-informed and dedicated committee, involving people at senior level to drive change in all the different areas across the business. Also, make sure there is a business case for every change that is suggested, as this will ensure that your projects are economically, as well as environmentally sustainable. Finally, ensure that your core business strategy and climate strategy are aligned, so everyone understands the reasons behind the changes you try to implement.

Implementing the Carbon Trust Standard

The benefits of implementing the Carbon Trust Standard are both short and long term. In this article we will look at how it helps companies subject to the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC), and sets them on the right track in their emissions reduction efforts. We will also look at areas where difficulties are likely to arise in implementing the standard and how these might be tackled.

The Standard is one of two designated Early Action Metrics in CRC, and is likely to bring two main benefits to those who implement it – reductions in the cost of participating in the scheme, and a higher place in the CRC league table, reducing the risk of damage to a company's reputation.

CRC requires all participants to buy enough allowances to cover their emissions at a rate of £12 per tonne of CO2 in the first phase, the money being paid back to participants in amounts that vary according to their rank in the league table. For the first year of the scheme the Standard accounts for 50% of the points awarded, falling to 20% in year two, and 10% in the final year.

Low Carbon Board Report has learned from a reliable source that the Environment Agency – the government body responsible for implementing CRC – will adjust the points system so as to reward companies that achieve the Standard earlier rather than later in 2010-2011. But whatever the final form of the points allocation system, we know that those achieving the highest positions in the league table will save up to 10% of the cost of allowances.

Challenging but achievable

So, what must companies do to achieve the Standard? The actions required fall into three main categories:

- Participants must measure their carbon footprints accurately, including emissions from all specified sources
- Absolute reductions in the carbon footprint, or an equivalent efficiency improvement must be achieved
- Carbon management, including governance, accounting, reduction methods and targets of a company must be shown to meet required standards

At present the second of these is unlikely to be top of the agenda for companies that are taking their first steps on the journey towards implementation. The other two are likely to be more pressing concerns. Collating the data needed for the first requirement could be a significant challenge for some companies, not because they don't possess it, more likely because it will be distributed across different systems and business units.

“The energy data – for gas and electricity, for example – should be available in any reasonably well organised company. It means three years of energy bills,” says Sue Spilsbury, a consultant working with RWE npower. “I think the biggest issue for a lot of companies will be the requirement for transport data. For the first application companies will only have to calculate the footprint data for vehicles they own, but further down the line it will cover transport they use – and that includes road, rail and air. Some of the data you need should be in your systems for claiming travel expenses, but those systems aren't set up for this purpose, and they're separate from those for your energy bills,” she says.

Difficult it may be, but tackling transport emissions is essential if we're serious about moving to a low carbon economy, emphasises Harry Morrison, General Manager of the Carbon Trust Standard Company, tasked with overseeing the scheme. “Yes transport is more challenging, but transport is a key part of an organisation's footprint, it is the direct responsibility of an organisation, and it is also a key part of the UK footprint as a whole.”

“And it is achievable – we know this because of the 250 organisations that have passed the Standard in the last two years. From the feedback we have received from businesses we know that it is important to tackle transport emissions. It is achievable, but it is challenging, and that's what it is supposed to be,” he says.

Policy, process, plan

Striking the right balance between what is achievable but sufficiently challenging is a tough task, and for some observers it is not quite right yet. Emissions from outsourced transport operations are not included for companies in the first year of the scheme, notes Chris Harrop, Director of Sustainability at Marshalls, a landscape materials company that has already been accredited. “Could some companies outsource their transport operations to make achieving the Standard easier? It's important for CRC to drive the right behaviour,” he says.

Marshalls uses route-planning software for all its road haulage operations, whether vehicles are owned or not, but company cars can add complexity he says. “You may have some people who use a fuel card, and others that opted out, so then you have to get the data from two sources. This may drive changes in the company – it might get to the point where you say to staff that they have to use a fuel card,” he says.

Other changes may involve new ways of seeing and thinking about existing data and processes, suggests Delvin Lane, Head of Energy 360, an arm of British Gas aiming to exploit the market opportunities created by CRC. “We're finding that often the data is there but it's difficult to get. We're also finding that organisations often have a plan in place that is relevant – they have the basics of a carbon management plan – but they don't realise it. An example is a public sector organisation we've been working with – they're trying to cut costs, so they have a budgetry plan. But it can be adapted to be a carbon management plan,” he says.

It's important not to get side-tracked into minute levels of detail with the carbon management plan, suggests Chris Harrop of Marshalls. “It is quite woolly, and you could go overboard with it. But what you basically need to show is that you have a policy in place headed by someone at a senior level, and processes for putting it into practice.”

Overall, Harrop is in no doubt that implementing the Carbon Trust Standard has been worth the effort for Marshalls. “There are two basic reasons why I thought we should do it – the methodology helps you understand your business better, and of course it improves your scores in CRC.”


Key questions:

- Have we analysed the risks of a poor ranking in the league table?
- Have we reviewed our transport policies and processes?
- Do we have the ingredients of a carbon management plan?