Sainsbury's Launches a Carbon Academy

May 19, 2011

The U.K. retailer is launching Sainsbury's Carbon Academy, which the company says will revolutionize the way it manages its carbon footprint by providing environmental training to 20,000 people by 2020.

The Academy aims to highlight the importance of carbon-awareness while also improving the skills and knowledge base among Sainsbury's contractors, suppliers and colleagues.

"We see this very much as a revolution in the way we manage our environmental impact. In order to fight carbon effectively, we need to ensure that everyone who comes into contact with our business has the knowledge and skills necessary to help reduce Sainsbury's carbon footprint,” said Neil Sachdev, Sainsbury's property director. “ We want all of our colleagues and contractors to become industry leaders in carbon reduction and this academy will help us to make this aspiration a reality."

Sainsbury’s committed to environmentally responsible CO2 refrigeration in 2009, despite the lack of UK-based CO2 engineers. Since then the company has invested in providing its refrigeration contractors with the skills needed to help Sainsbury’s expand the green technology.

"Initiatives such as this will become part of our Carbon Academy as we aim to use our business as a test bed through which to take fledgling environmental technologies into the mainstream, ensuring businesses can continue to grow sustainably over the coming years,” Sachdev said.

Skills learned at the Carbon Academy will be wide-ranging, from understanding how small changes in every day working practices can reduce carbon impact, to highly specialized skill acquisition such as the CO2 refrigeration project.

The Academy will gather all of the work Sainsbury's is already doing in the field of environmental training including the Reset scheme, which trains store managers and their department heads to manage their stores' energy usage more effectively. Stores that have been through the Reset process have reduced energy usage in their stores by up to of 17 percent, according to the company.

GRD Views: The Carbon Academy demonstrates real leadership by Sainsbury to green retailing. Congratulations to Sainsbury for making this bold move. It’s just another example of why we believe retailers have the opportunity to lead all industry in the adoption of sustainable business practices. -- John Failla for Green Retail Decisions

Keywords: environmental training

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