November 2, 2022 – Last week our local brand, Delhaize Serbia, announced concrete measures to help save electricity. It has turned off all illuminated advertising in stores, indoor advertising lighting, beverage refrigerators, optimized the temperature in all its locations, and also turns off supplier beverage refrigerators at night when stores are closed. With these measures, Delhaize Serbia aims to help challenges caused by energy supply, as well as to inspire customers and raise awareness on responsible energy consumption.
In addition to all illuminated advertisements being turned off, as well as the lighting above fresh products and cosmetics aisles, all outdoor lighting is switched off, apart from necessary lighting that allows a safe passage for people.
Measures introduced in previous years as part of Delhaize Serbia’s sustainability strategy, will also be accelerated. By the end of 2024, its entire store network will use LED lighting, and by the end of November this year, the existing fluorescent lighting in the Distribution Center will be replaced by LED lighting, which is expected to cut power consumption by about 700 MWh per year on the company level. Implementation of modern software solutions that combine the use of natural lighting with artificial lighting will also begin throughout the entire retail network by the end of this year.
“During the analysis of the introduced measures, we considered the habits of our customers, as well as global challenges and the need to rationalize energy use. We therefore introduced changes to work processes in order to cut consumption during daily peaks. These measures have been implemented throughout the entire system, and we will be reminded of our own responsibility as individuals every time we see a message in the supermarket that calls for responsibility and rational consumption,” said Dejan Virijević, Member of Executive Committee and Vice President of Operations and Supply Chain at Delhaize Serbia.
Currently, the company has about 60 stores in its system that use CO2 as their cooling systems. Replacements are planned for 17 more stores by the end of the year, and the company plans to stop using Freon completely in the next 8 years. This will cut power consumption of cooling systems by about 40% compared to Freon-based cooling systems.
Among the new measures is the introduction of a central cooling monitoring and management system. This software will enable economic management of power consumption by turning off certain showcases during the night, raising temperatures during the night and managing the thawing period. This system has already been implemented in over 170 stores and will be introduced in another 80 by the end of the year. Furthermore, in the next few days, remote management of air-conditioning systems will be brought in 10 stores, and an additional 15 in 2023.
Ahold Delhaize brands continue to cut their carbon emissions
All of our great local brands are taking steps to reach net-zero carbon emissions across all operations by 2040 (scope 1 and 2) and to become net-zero businesses across the brands’ entire supply chains, products and services no later than 2050 (scope 3). We have set these commitments in accordance with the Science Based Target initiative’s Net-Zero Standard requirements.
