the environmentalist gives a round up of environment management news from companies including Asda, Marks & Spencer and the InterContinental Hotels Group
Asda will employ the EnactoTM 9.3 energy monitoring management platform from Elster Energy ICT to manage more than 10,000 meters at more than 660 sites in the UK over the next five years. The retailer has been working with Elster since 2005 and has achieved a 30% reduction in energy consumption. The retailer believes the new software will enable it to match the 2020 energy reduction target of its US parent, Walmart, which is to cut consumption by 20% against 2010 levels.
Elsewhere on the high street, the Co-operative has installed a biomass heating system as part of a refit of its Fort William store. It is the first Co-op outlet to switch to biomass and will almost halve its annual energy bill and save 90 tonnes of carbon a year. The system attracts a payment of £13,000 a year through from the government’s Renewable Heat Incentive, so recouping the capital cost in less than five years.
Marks & Spencer, meanwhile, is installing more than 24,000 solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of its distribution centre at Castle Donnington. When completed next year it will be the UK’s largest single roof-mounted solar array, generating around 5,000MWh of electricity annually and cutting carbon emissions by more than 48,000 tonnes over the next two years.
The InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is to roll out its green engage system across more than 4,700 sites worldwide from 1 January. The online tool, featured in the environmentalist in June 2013, contains more than 200 “green” solutions to reduce hotels’ environmental impact. So far, the system has been used in IHG’s managed hotels, and, in 2013, it helped reduce energy costs by $73 million.
Reckitt Benckiser has announced that all its European and US operations have achieved zero manufacturing waste to landfill. The company’s sustainability strategy, “betterbusiness”, includes 2020 targets to send zero waste to landfill and reduce waste per unit of production by 10%. Reckitt Benckiser says that more than 60% of its factories worldwide have achieved zero manufacturing waste to landfill, and it has reduced waste per unit by 7% globally since 2013.
