Making a difference at all levels

Adopting measures to reduce energy usage and conserve natural resources makes good environmental and economic sense. Our sustainability principles in relation to energy and emissions from buildings are to:
 • reduce the consumption of energy within our businesses
 • reduce emissions , conserve resources and reduce expenditure on energy
 • reduce our dependence on finite fossil fuels through the use of viable alternative renewable energy sources
 • reduce our carbon footprint

Efficient energy use initiatives by both ourselves and our retail partners extend to buildings and operations both big and small. For example:
 • in 2007 we negotiated a €2.6 million contract with Airtricity, a company that produces energy from wind farms, to supply renewable energy to 13 of our sites in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford, Donegal and Kildare. The deal has the potential to reduce our CO2 emissions by over 21,000 tones a year and bring significant cost savings
 • in Musgrave House, our Cork HQ, daily monitoring of energy consumption has significantly improved awareness of energy use. The deal with Airtricity means that the building’s emissions will effectively be zero. Further energy and CO2 saving measures are now under way with the aim of reducing the building’s energy consumption to below 100Kwh per m2
 • our Tramore Road premises in Cork incorporates a geothermal system, solar water heating technology and lighting control systems, including occupancy detection sensors and daylight compensation auto-dimming systems
 • refrigeration systems at Budgens, Moreton-on-Marsh, Gloucestershire, are using a range of technologies to cut energy use, including twin air screens to protect the refrigerated air space, smart controllers and low energy fan motors
 • we now operate a centralised data capture and management system to record the amount and type of energy used throughout our building stock. This monitors both thermal energy in the form of natural gas for central heating and electrical energy from both fossil fuel and renewable energy sources.