Energy Efficiency, GHG Emissions, Commercial - July 16, 2018
Kroger sets table with sustainability goals
With the release of its company’s 2018 Sustainability Report, The Kroger Co. shared progress on a variety of sustainability goals, including two climate-related goals for Kroger Retail.
The first goal is to reduce cumulative energy (electricity) consumption in its supermarkets by 40% by 2020 from a 2000 baseline. The report noted, "By 2017, we had achieved an electricity savings of about 38% in our supermarkets since 2000, putting us on track to achieve our goal by 2020. This is an increase of about 3 percentage points from last year."
The second goal is to reduce refrigerant emissions by 9% in 2018 in the company’s retail stores. The report said, "As a food retailer with a large store footprint and a sizeable number of refrigerated products, we recognized that refrigerant emissions are a material part of our carbon footprint (approximately 25% of our corporate carbon footprint)." In 2017, the company met its goal to reduce refrigerants by 10%. Kroger’s new stores offer energy-efficient design featuring including LED lighting, motion sensors, variable speed drives, anti-sweat heat controls, and distributed refrigeration systems. Additionally, Kroger is retrofitting existing stores with energy-efficient technologies, including a 2017 roll-out of LED lighting retrofits to more than 1,500 stores.
In the area of energy and carbon emissions reduction, the company set a transportation efficiency goal to improve their Ton Miles Per Gallon (TMPG) by 20% by 2020, using a 2010 baseline. As of 2017, the company has achieved an 8.1% improvement, up from 7.5% in 2016.
The report noted, “At Kroger, we care about the planet and how our business affects our climate. We have implemented programs to manage risks and opportunities related to climate change, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in our retail, manufacturing, fleet/logistics operations and building construction for several years, and continue to do so. This is also an important topic for our stakeholders—investors, associates, our leaders and our suppliers—who expect Kroger to first minimize energy consumption and limit our emissions and then shift toward renewable energy sources. They also feel that Kroger can play a role in limiting emissions in our supply chain."
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