What will supermarkets look like in a low-carbon future?

Sunday, 1 September 2019

Countdown customers soon to be able to BYO containers in limited stores as a new scheme to reduce single use plastics is trialled.

Countdown supermarket is looking to reduce carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2030, it announced this week in its yearly sustainability report.

The ambitious new target is in line with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The supermarket had already reduced emissions by 21 per cent since 2016, and by 7.6 per cent in the last year alone but the 'massive jump' in targets would bring a 'renewed focus'.

The Australian owned supermarket sought a mandate from the board, which was given the go-ahead this week.

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'There will be a huge financial investment to do it but now that we've got the mandate we can do some really cool planning, ' general manager, corporate affairs, quality, safety and sustainability, Kiri Hannifin said.

'Now we need to look at sequencing and speed and how we can make the most impact. 2030 is not that far away,' she said.

First Retail Group managing director Chris Wilkinson said that supermarkets were huge power users and had a responsibility to take action. This would probably come in the form of greater efficiencies.

Customers could expect to see changes to stores in the future, including more ambient light and refill stations.

'For retail it's all about margins and many business have squeezed every ounce out of other parts of their operations and this is one of the last bastions. If there's a way to squeeze it, they'll find it,' he said.

What this looked like in practice would probably involve how items were transported to and from stores and may involve collaborative distribution or the use of electric vehicles (EVs), he said.

Competitor Foodstuffs, which operates Pak n' Save, Foursquare and New World supermarkets has similar commitments it hopes to reach by 2023.

A 2018 report from the company says it will harness new technologies to halve its carbon footprint from 2013 levels and new stores would be 20 per cent more energy efficient than they were in 2013.

Its light vehicle fleet would also be shifting to electric or hybrid where feasible.

Hannifin confirmed that fuel was the third largest chunk of Countdown's emissions and it had recently launched an online delivery service using EVs.

The supermarket would become much more efficient in how it moved food around including not having empty trucks on the road and filling them up to the top, Hannifin said.

First Retail Group's Chris Wilkinson said that as big energy users, supermarkets had a responsibility to address emissions.

The two largest sources of emissions for Countdown were refrigerants at 36 per cent and electricity at 29 per cent. It would move towards using only natural gasses for its refrigeration, along with greater use of solar power in stores.

In the future customers could also expect to see more ambient light and lighting changing to LED.

But Hannifin said the the new mandate would mean its efforts would go beyond 'the usual suspects', to include changes to packaging for its own brand products - a return to paper and glass, which are both currently recyclable in New Zealand.

Countdown aims to reduce its carbon emissions by 60 per cent over the next 10 years.

Countdown is also aiming to have zero food waste, a big source of emissions, by next year.

Part of this might include new products, like chutney, made from food waste. A beer made from old bread was another possibility, Hannifin said.

'I think there's going to be a lot of cool innovation coming onstream,' she said.

Supermarkets would likely look much different in the future to accommodate many of the new changes. In particular they would get smaller, especially in urban areas, to decrease their energy footprints. Wider aisles could be expected to to make them more accessible for disabled users.

Customers could also expect to see smaller 'green' features such as refill stations and meat diversification.

Wilkinson the future would include a resurgence in neighbourhood shopping and the emergence of local delivery solutions to get products to people's homes.