Energy and climate change

Energy

We have a long history of actively managing the efficient use of energy, including the use of electricity, steam and heat from successive combined heat and power energy centres on the Nottingham Support Office site since 1915/16.

More recently, between 2004/05 and 2007/08 we’ve invested a further £4.9 million in energy efficiency measures for our stores, producing ongoing cumulative savings of 19 GWh (gigawatt hours) annually (equivalent to £1.5 million annual cost savings at 2007/08 prices).

Our projects during 2007/08 have included the installation of a further 260 Automatic Meter Read (AMR) meters (bringing the total to nearly 800 stores with half-hourly automated meter reading capability) to further improve electricity consumption data quality and enable better targeting of future energy efficiency projects. We’re continuing to assess the potential for the installation of further AMR meters across our store portfolio.

We’ve also increased the number of sites with remote building control systems by installing new energy management systems. This ‘virtual building manager’ project, in partnership with Building Management Systems Integrators Ltd, won the Energy Management Award at the Building Controls Industry Awards in 2008.

Our people are also making a difference as we continued to support our in-store energy champions, who make a valuable contribution to energy efficiency improvements in our smaller stores,for example, where we don’t yet have the same levels of automation and remote metering. At our Nottingham Support Office site we held “Energy Savings” events in partnership with the Energy Saving Trust to inform our colleagues about energy saving both at work and at home and the availability of grants for homeowners.

We were really pleased when our hard work was rewarded with an independent Energy Efficiency Accreditation from The Carbon Trust for the high standard of our energy management systems and the work we have carried out over the last 3 years to reduce energy consumption in our stores.

Overall, our absolute energy consumption has improved by around 2%, from 521 GWh in 2006/07 to 509 GWh in 2007/08. 

Total energy consumption

Total energy consumption

Climate change

We believe that addressing the impact of climate change is an issue of paramount importance, recognising that a healthy planet, healthy lifestyles and healthy business are all fundamentally linked to each other. We each have an important role to play to reduce the impact of global climate change, whether through our individual lifestyle choices, or through government or business decision making.

Our membership of The Prince of Wales’ May Day Network (in association with Business in the Community) since 2007 is part of our response to this issue as we continue to work to understand the complex issues and the challenging targets we will need to set ourselves if we’re to make a difference. Throughout this website you will find examples of the various workstreams we are undertaking, whether better understanding the footprints of our supply chains, our products, our transport operations, or continuing to work with partners such as The Carbon Trust investigating the potential for renewable energy generation in Boots stores. This latter project, concluded that the most cost effective renewable technology for a Boots store could be wind turbines, provided that they’re located on stores with appropriate prevailing wind conditions to deliver the necessary energy production and associated cost benefits. As our stores do not need much heat, however, many of today’s renewable technologies still remain inappropriate.

Carbon dioxide for energy use in buildings

Carbon dioxide for energy use in buildings

We’re also working with partners on the design of a low carbon Boots store to influence the design of our stores going forward; not only further reducing the footprint of our new stores but influencing the refit projects of our existing stores.