Carbon Reduction

In our supply chain, we minimise our carbon footprint by sourcing from farms with environmental improvement programmes in place. Through the Origin Green programme, the world’s first national food sustainability programme created by Bord Bia, all our beef, lamb and dairy farms in Ireland are carbon footprinted every 18 months, and development strategies are provided to farmers to improve their environmental footprint and save costs.

Following on from our carbon footprint analysis, we developed our reduction strategy which first and foremost addresses efficiency measures including the certification of all operations to the ISO 50001 energy efficiency standard and measures such as the installation of more efficient technologies. We were delighted also to announce significant investment in on-site renewables by installing solar PV on a number of our stores and integrating solar PV into the specification of all new stores and major refurbishments.

Our distribution centre in Newbridge also has an extensive array of solar panels. In 2018 we decided to switch to sourcing 100% renewable electricity, which has significantly reduced the carbon footprint (market-based*) of our operations. We are also continuously moving to refrigerants with lower Global Warming Potential (GWP) in refrigeration units used to cool products in our stores and warehouses.