Reducing energy use

How we plan to use 50% less energy in stores and spend £100 million on developing renewable energies.

We’ve halved our energy use since 2000!
Greener stores
Greener transportation
£100 million for new green technology
Our carbon footprint
Helping you to make a difference

We’re doing more to use less energy
As part of our pledge to cut our carbon footprint, we have to cut our energy use. So we’ve made an important commitment: by 2020, we plan to have halved the carbon footprint of our global business compared to 2006.

We’ve halved our energy use since 2000!
Our UK stores use 50% less energy than they did in 2000. This year alone we have invested £86 million in energy-saving technology for our stores, including low-energy lighting, energy-efficient bakery ovens, wind turbines, combined heat and power (CHP), trigeneration and hanging curtains on freezer doors. These measures saved 66,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Greener stores
Cheetham Hill, Manchester is Tesco’s first store, built January 2009, using our new low-carbon blueprint. The store’s carbon footprint has been cut by 70 percent compared to an equivalent store built in 2006. Planning permitting, this we be the model for all new stores built in the UK from now on.

Find out more about Cheetham Hill store

Greener transportation
By 2012 we aim to halve the CO2 emissions on each case of goods delivered to our stores. We have now achieved 23% of this target. How? Well, we use our vehicles as efficiently as possible, we’re using more alternative forms of transport and are investing in new technologies.

• We are increasing the percentage of double decker trailers which can carry more products per journey.

• Our distribution centres are being made as efficient as possible with eco–friendly technologies.

• The Tesco Express is our very own train which carries stock between our distribution centres in Daventry and Livingston. One train journey by the Tesco Express can carry the same as 28 lorries, saving over 14,560 lorry journeys every year.

• Our online store, Tesco.com, now makes deliveries using battery-powered vans, saving around 330 tonnes of CO2 each year!

• We’re using barges to transport wine from Liverpool to Manchester, along the famous Manchester Ship Canal, slashing carbon emissions by around 80%. Using canals in this way also takes 50 lorries off the roads every week, which results in a phenomenal 1.1 million fewer heavy lorry journeys in the UK.

• In order to make our Tesco Direct catalogue operations greener, we do as much of the transportation as possible by rail and sea rather than road, which means huge savings on carbon emissions.

£100 million for new green technology
Our £100 million Sustainable Technology Fund is finding more practical ways to use renewable energy like solar and wind power, and to help develop the green technologies of the future.

For example, we’re investing in a technology that could turn food waste into power. We’re working with the Carbon Trust and Brunel University to develop trigeneration combined heat and power technology (which captures and reuses heat) for our stores and distribution centres that could save over 10,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.

Our carbon footprint
Every year, we measure our carbon footprint. In 2008, the global Tesco business emitted 4.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and equivalent greenhouse gases. Although this is higher than the previous year, our floor space grew by more over the same period, meaning that the carbon intensity of our business actually decreased by 10.9% year on year.

More about carbon footprints

Helping you to make a difference

We’re very pleased to be part of Together, a campaign to make it easier for individuals to combat climate change. We’ve teamed up with lots of household names like British Gas and O2, and we’re all working together to make it easier for you to be a little greener, starting right now!

For instance as part of Together we halved the cost of our energy saving light bulbs and introduced a home insulation service. We’re also offering you a bigger choice and making sure they’re available in all of our stores.

Order energy–saving light bulbs from Tesco Direct