Posted Date: 1/20/2012
Largest South American Retailer Tracks Carbon Footprint with SAP
The Grupo Pão de Açúcar, the largest retailer in South America, has selected the SAP Carbon Impact OnDemand solution to monitor and manage carbon emissions and energy consumption in each of its 1,832 stores.
The solution from SAP AG will help the group, long recognized as a sustainability leader for retailers both in Latin America and globally, to more effectively control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increase the data quality of environmental reports submitted to financial and sustainability regulatory agencies. The announcement was made at the NRF 101st Annual Convention & EXPO, held Jan. 15-18 in New York City.
Since 2008, The Grupo Pão de Açúcar has been committed to sustainable business practices, including reducing waste, encouraging recycling and re-use of recycled materials, and developing sustainable products and production processes. SAP Carbon Impact OnDemand will help the company mitigate its environmental footprint and further its sustainability goals.
Each year, Bovespa, the São Paulo Stock Exchange on which The Grupo Pão de Açúcar has been listed since 1995, invites the top 50 companies to take part in its Carbon Efficient (iCO2) and Environmental Sustainability (ISE) Indexes. Moving forward, SAP Carbon Impact OnDemand will help the company improve insight and more easily provide the information required to obtain sustainability recognition from Bovespa.
“Before selecting SAP Carbon Impact OnDemand, we used an external firm to collect and report on this information,” said Hugo Bethlem, vice president, The Grupo Pão de Açúcar. “The new solution will allow us to bring this process in-house, making it more efficient and providing us with more operational control. We will gain both valuable insight and a robust tool for proactively managing emissions and energy consumption. The Grupo Pão de Açúcar will be one of the first retail companies in Latin America to inventory its carbon emissions. From this measurement, we will be able to create plans to reduce the GHG emissions and carbon footprint of our operations."
Today, The Grupo Pão de Açúcar’s carbon emissions are measured according to internationally recognized
GHG Protocol accounting standards. These standards recently expanded to include indirect emissions from the broader supply chain as well as company operations and energy use. Beginning in 2012, the iCO2 index will require reporting on all these types of emissions as well. SAP will help The Grupo Pão de Açúcar more easily report, assess and minimize the footprint of its facilities, energy use and production life cycle.
Retailers play a critical role in driving sustainability initiatives throughout consumer goods supply chains. The retail sector is uniquely positioned to understand consumers’ perspectives and work with their suppliers to provide healthier, more sustainable product choices. The Grupo Pão de Açúcar is focused on identifying and reducing energy and emissions waste at distribution centers and stores, which will help lower costs for their customers.
With energy and environmental management solutions from SAP, The Grupo Pão de Açúcar can achieve better oversight not only across each business division, but also at the stores and brand levels. Because the application is based in the cloud, it can be deployed rapidly, with minimal hardware investments and administered easily by non-technical staff.
A go-live date is expected in early 2012 and the implementation will be managed by Finity, a SAP partner. The initial phase covers all brands of The Grupo Pão de Açúcar, including the management of 12 sources of emission in 1,832 stores.