Relating carbon and energy intensity of best-performing retailers with policy, strategy and building practice

Abstract

Retail stores are amongst the building typologies with the highest carbon (CI) and energy intensities (EI). However, previous studies have only explored best practice EI of food and non-food retailers, without identifying best practice CI threshold values. This paper presents a five-step analysis of CI and EI amongst the highest revenue retailers, benchmarking best and worst performing CI and EI retailers, analysing their nationality, performing a content analysis on their CSR reports and comparing results in terms of differentiation policies, strategies and building practices that can lead to increased environmental performance. Combined CI and EI best practice threshold values were found simultaneously under 346 kWh/m 2 /y and 115 kg CO 2 eq/m 2 /y for food retailers and under 146 kWh/m 2 /y and 70 kg CO 2 eq/m 2 /y for non-food retailers. In terms of policy, best-performing retailers shared a strong top-down management commitment towards sustainability across all business areas (p = 0.04) and an increased use of referential reporting standards, particularly of GRI standards (p = 0.05) and of the GHG protocol (p = 0.01). In terms of strategy, they established ambitious energy goals, such becoming 100% supplied by renewable energy (p = 0.05) or carbon neutral by 2020. As for building practice, LED and photovoltaic technology were the most popular high-performance solutions, but only the use of natural refrigerants (p = 0.001) and gas transfer to CO 2 (p = 0.0007) were related to best-performing practice. The variability of CI and EI found in this study shows that it is already possible to reduce the retail sector's contribution to global GHG emissions considerably. The proposed best practice CI and EI reference levels, linked to corporate policy, strategy and building practice, are useful new tools for retail energy-management, which can further promote sustainability in retail buildings, thus allowing a deeper understanding of how to decarbonize the retail building sector.

Thinking inside the box: new ways of considering energy consumption in a multi-user agency-constrained environment

“…Taking into account such a performance indicator to inform design decisions is of critical importance in the context of the commercial sector and especially in retail, where the highest energy consumption rates are observed (Pérez-Lombard et al, 2008). Retail stores account for 9% of total CO 2 emission in the European building stock (Building Performance Institute Europe, 2011, as cited by Ferreira et al, 2020), while the average total energy consumption of a retail store is calculated to be around 1000 kWh/m 2 per year, a figure which is significantly higher than the corresponding energy consumption of other commercial buildings, such as offices (100-200 kWh/m 2 per year) or hotels (100-300 kWh/m 2 per year) (Galvez-Martos et al, 2013). Especially when refrigeration systems are used, the energy intensity of retail buildings is significantly higher (Schönberger et al, 2013).…”

“…There are several previous studies which investigated best practice to promote energy efficiency and carbon savings in retail buildings (Ferreira et al, 2020;Fieldson & Rai, 2009;Galvez-Martos et al, 2013;Gimeno-Frontera et al, 2018;Iyer et al, 2015;Jenkins, 2008;Kolokotroni et al, 2015;Kolokotroni et al, 2019;Mylona et al, 2018;Schönberger et al, 2013;Spyrou et al, 2014;Tassou et al, 2011;Timma et al, 2016). Tassou et al (2011) analysed the energy consumption data of 2570 retail food stores in the UK and found that energy consumption in supermarkets varies widely and depends on many factors, such as the type and size of store, business and merchandising practices, product mix, shopping activities, refrigeration and environmental control systems used, and equipment used for food preparation, preservation, and display.…”

“…A number of previous studies assessed how organisational structure and staff behaviour to energy use could act as barriers or drivers for energy efficiency in retail building stock (Christina et al, 2014;Christina et al, 2015;Dixon-O'Mara & Ryan, 2018;Sullivan Energy Efficiency , 2013;Woods et al, 2017;Galvez-Martos et al, 2013;Bentley, 2016;Klemick et al, 2017;Jiang & Keith Tovey, 2009). Ferreira et al (2020) investigated the energy intensity (EI) and carbon intensity (CI) of best-performance retailers, as well as their links to policy, strategy, and building practice. The findings of their analysis suggest a holistic approach to corporate culture and social responsibility as a way to reduce CI and EI and mitigate climate change impacts.…”

“…An effective energy management system should establish clear and ambitious energy goals (Christina et al, 2015;Ferreira et al, 2020). According to Jiang and Keith Tovey (2009), an effective management system should incorporate both technical and non-technical aspects to energy use and it should be supported at all levels within an organisation.…”

Energy Efficiency Model Construction of Building Carbon Neutrality Design

“…Building energy consumption is broken down into three categories by Pauliuk et al (2021): physical energy, chemical energy, and operational energy, or the three stages of materialization, usage, and demolition [16]. Construction projects, operations, maintenance, building deconstruction, and solid sewage disposal were the five stages that Ferreira et al (2020) divided the building life cycle into [17]. By accounting for the manufacture, transportation, construction, operation, maintenance, and demolition of building materials, Hossain et al (2022) divided the carbon emission during the full life cycle into six stages [18].…”