FRANCE – French multinational retailer, Carrefour Group has unveiled a new set of targets seeking to further reduce its store-related carbon footprint by cutting carbon emissions on products sold in its stores by 30% over the next decade.
The retailer, which operates 12,300 stores in more than 30 countries, has further set the target of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 55% between now and 2040, compared with 2019 levels.
As part of the new commitment, Carrefour has structured its product climate action plan around three priorities; production of goods by suppliers: product use by customers and downstream freight transport of goods.
According to the retailer, activities related to production by its suppliers are responsible for 72% of its carbon emissions while product use by customers and transportation of goods account to 12% and 5% of its emissions respectively.
The retailer mow seeks to reduce emissions linked to the purchase of goods and services by 30% by 2030, compared to 2019, by offering more plant-based alternatives, local products or by reducing the use of packaging and plastic. According to the French firm, this corresponds to a reduction of 20 megatons of CO2 in collaboration with its suppliers.
“Carrefour is committed to going further by working together with its customers and suppliers to improve the way we produce and consume: more local, eco-designed, reducing packaging, more vegetable protein,” the company said in a statement.
Carrefour has also committed to reducing product-related emissions – fuels and electronics – by 27.5% by 2030, compared to 2019, by offering decarbonated alternatives and eco-designed products.
Carrefour said that it has will set up an energy efficiency plan for each store, replacing refrigerants in cold production plants and is developing partnerships to produce photovoltaic electricity, as with Urbasolar.
The retailer further targets to cut CO2 emissions related to downstream transport by 20% by 2030, compared to 2019, by optimizing logistics models and developing alternatives to the use of diesel. Carrefour plans to triple its fleet of biomethane trucks in France by 2022 from 332 trucks in 2019.
Carrefour said that these new objectives have been approved by the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) led by the CDP, the Global Compact, the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the WWF, reaffirming its commitment of keeping global warming below 2°C in 2100 compared to pre-industrial temperatures.
The new objectives also build on the retailer’s climate action plan that it initiated in 2015. By then, the Group embarked on a transparent initiative to transform its business model and limit its environmental impact by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2025 and by 70% by 2050, compared with 2010 levels.
The Paris-based multinational revealed that by 2019, it had achieved a 39% reduction for its stores. Today, Carrefour prides as the leading self-consumer of renewable energy in France.
The Group’s performance has been recognized by third-party bodies tasked with measuring the deployment of this plan: Carrefour is among the top 5 global retailers in terms of CSR according to the DJSI (Dow Jones Sustainability World Index).
The Group obtained an A rating in the CDP’s annual list in 2019, which ranks the Group as the leading French retailer and, more globally, among the 2% of leading companies in the fight against climate change in the world.
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