We invest in adopting a responsible and proactive stance, aiming to reduce the carbon footprint resulting from our activities.
We want to reduce our consumption of energy and water and we choose less polluting refrigerant gases, because we believe that only an efficient approach to natural resources can benefit the ecosystems.
By being committed to efficient resource management, we are able not only to obtain savings but more importantly, to implement initiatives that aim to fight climate change.
An example of this is the project “Teams for Managing Water and Energy Consumption”, whose objective is to raise the awareness of the over 30,000 employees working in our more than 450 stores in Portugal, regarding the fight against waste and the rational use of energy and water.
Between 2011 and 2017, we saved over 4.4 million euros, reflected in 357,700 m3 of water and 36,565,800 kWh of electricity.
In the course of doing business, we seek to integrate environmental criteria into our infrastructures’ building and refurbishing projects. Biedronka, Pingo Doce, Recheio and Ara have been implementing efficient control systems for cooling plants, more efficient technologies in terms of lighting, refrigerated displays and freezers fitted with doors and covers, as well as autonomous energy management systems.
Our most recent Distribution Centre, in Alfena, enables us to increase our energy efficiency, obtaining reductions in energy consumption of around 32% compared to the usual technology, as well as contributing towards water savings in the order of 1,700 m3. It also collected over 1,100 m3 of rainwater for use in the cooling and sprinkler systems and for washing the outside of trucks.
Around 93% of all the water consumed by the Group comes from the municipal supply system. For less demanding operations, in terms of water quality (e.g. sprinklers and cooling systems), the Group has the necessary licenses. In 2017, discharge of wastewater in the natural environment (only Companies in Portugal) represented around 3% of the total wastewater generated by the Group, which is properly treated before being released.
In the office buildings in Portugal, we launched in 2015 the project “Let’s Go Green”, aiming to encourage people to adopt more responsible best practices in their use of energy, water and paper. Between 2015 and 2017, it was possible to secure a 344,900 kWh reduction in electricity consumption.
We invest in renewable energy systems, such as passive underground cooling or heating, the use of solar collectors for heating water, lamp posts fed by photovoltaic panels and tubular systems for transporting natural light.
These systems enabled us to save approximately 85,000 euros in 2017. This gain in efficiency meant we were able to prevent the emission of 777 tons of carbon into the atmosphere, an improvement of 141 tons compared to 2016.
As our core business is Distribution, we seek to reduce the environmental impacts linked to the logistics processes throughout our value chain, minimising the consumption of raw materials and energy resources and also reducing the amount of emissions and waste.
Through our backhauling programme, consisting of optimising delivery routes and maximising loads, during the return journeys, we collect empty pallets from our stores and suppliers in Portugal and in Poland.
Between 2011 and 2017, we collected around 3.1 million pallets, saving 46.2 million kilometres in journeys, the equivalent of 60 trips to the moon and back, and prevented the emission of 44.8 thousand tons of CO2.
In Portugal, 83% of the goods transport vehicles comply with the Euro 5 requirements (169 vehicles) and Euro 6 requirements (107 vehicles) proposed by the European Union. In Poland, 93% of the goods transport vehicles comply with the Euro 5 requirements (620 vehicles) and Euro 6 requirements (267 vehicles). In Colombia, 12% of the trucks comply with the Euro 5 requirements (14 vehicles).
We believe that the effective use of refrigerant gases is essential for minimising their impact on climate change. That’s why we’ve been heightening the control of leaks in conjunction with our partners, by using more efficient technologies:
In 2017, our carbon footprint stood at around 1.2 million equivalent tons of CO2, a decrease of 4.6% compared to 2016, which can be justified mostly by the significant growth in the market-based* emission factors related to electricity consumption. For the same reason, the specific consumption fell from 0.0867 to 0.0743 equivalent tons of carbon per 1,000 euros of sales.
Find out more about our approach to climate change in our responses to CDP Climate, available in the related content set out on this page.
*carbon emissions released by the electricity producer when generating energy. The greater the proportion of electricity produced through renewable sources, the lower the carbon content of the kWh supplied.