On the route to more climate and environmental protection

The business operations of the ALDI North Group contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases and require natural resources. The sources of these impacts range from lighting, heating and water supply to our buildings, through transport and cooling of our goods, to the disposal of their packaging. Our holistic interpretation of sustainability entails that we take responsibility not only for the manufacture of our products but in all areas where our actions exert an impact.

Our aim is to reduce the consequences of our business operations on the climate and the environment. We have established this aspiration in our Corporate Responsibility (CR) Policy. Our CR Programme defines clear targets that we are gradually implementing. On the basis of the proven ALDI North Group principle expressed as “Focusing on the essentials”, we are taking action and deploying measures where we can achieve the greatest impacts. We are continuously improving our energy efficiency and expanding the proportion of renewable energies in our electricity supply. Modern logistics concepts are assisting us in shortening transport routes for goods and therefore making this more climate friendly. We are reducing waste by increasingly deploying multiple-use systems in logistics. A very large proportion of packaging materials are recycled and further utilised.

These measures are contributing to reducing our environmental footprint and they are reducing costs at the same time. We are also increasing the trust of our stakeholder groups in our holistic engagement.

A range of business processes are used to control matters relating to energy, logistics, waste and water. We systematically integrate specialist expertise from the relevant departments. Depending on the issues, the strategic concepts, targets and measures are developed by the working groups, specialist departments and the CR department. This is carried out in consultation with the CR managers of the ALDI North Group in all countries. As necessary, strategic concepts are modified in accordance with the requirements of local circumstances and adjusted to national legislation, and measures are rolled out on the basis of individual responsibility. The development towards more climate friendly logistics, which was established within ALDI Buying in 2015, is being driven forward in conjunction with the working group. Communication on this issue is also taking place with the ALDI North Group companies in the relevant countries.

Climate protection and resource efficiency must be firmly anchored in our routine approach every day so that we can achieve our targets. The employees of the ALDI North Group are the key factor for success. The companies in the ALDI North Group therefore raise employees’ awareness for conscientious and ethical behaviour in their everyday working environment. The main issues here are lighting and waste separation. An example of this approach is provided by the training sessions carried out in Spain on energy-efficient operation of the air-conditioning systems, lighting on demand, and avoidance of heat losses between heated and cooled areas. We also raise the awareness of our employees in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal as to how they can save energy with measures in the stores and in logistics that can easily be put into practice.

Statutory regulations and guidelines define high requirements for operational climate and environmental protection. We take account of new regulations at an early stage and we also operate beyond the scope of the statutory requirements. Currently we are working on implementation of the environmental regulations laid down by the European Union (EU). These include EU Regulation 517/2014 relating to fluorinated greenhouse gases, the amendment to the EU Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste (94/62/EEC) and the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27/EU). In Germany, the Energy Saving Regulation (EnEV) and the Energy Services Act (EDL-G) are also relevant to us.

The improvement of our energy efficiency is an important cornerstone for more climate protection. Precise knowledge of our consumption is absolutely essential in order to be in a position to determine the areas where we can save most energy. This data has therefore been analysed on a regular basis in the individual companies in the ALDI North Group for many years. Since 2015, we have bundled these activities in central CR data collection for the Sustainability Report. We record the consumption by business processes and break the data down by energy sources. We also determine the emissions that result from our consumption. In future, the consumption data will be evaluated by the CR department and the specialist department Property and Expansion in order to derive appropriate measures.

As is typically the case in the retail industry, we are able to save the most energy in lighting and cooling at our stores. There is also significant potential for savings with cooling technology at our distribution centres. This was confirmed not least in the energy audits defined under statutory regulations which we carried out at selected companies of the ALDI North Group in Belgium, Germany, Denmark and France at the end of 2015 (see interview on energy audit). The energy consumption for this was broken down in detail by consumption points such as freezers, baking ovens, air-conditioning systems, heating systems, heating for hot water and office lighting. At the end of 2015, implementation of the energy audit was started at ALDI Netherlands. In Spain, relevant statutory regulations came into force at the beginning of 2016 – this is why ALDI Spain is currently working with external service providers on implementing the energy audit.

We are currently developing a concept for an energy monitoring and management system in order to determine the potential for additional increases in our energy efficiency. The system permits a very detailed evaluation of current energy consumption and will be finished by 2017.

Furthermore, all consumption data form the necessary foundation in order to develop a concept for systematic reduction of our CO₂ emissions. This will merge the diverse climate protection measures carried out in the ALDI North Group by 2017.

We want to reduce energy consumption in the buildings of our stores, distribution centres and administrative buildings. The biggest potential for savings is in the areas of lighting and cooling technology. This is why many of our measures are deployed there. As early as 2013, we launched a project for optimising energy at our stores in Germany. The long-term goal is to eliminate most of our use of fossil, non-renewable combustion fuels throughout the ALDI North Group in our new stores. We are currently trying to achieve this in a pilot project in Germany.

Efficient lighting with LED technology

LED lighting systems use up to 50 percent less electricity than our existing lighting system. Today, LED lighting is already being used a great deal in outside areas and for promotional systems. From 2016, LED lighting will also be used for interior lighting in all new stores. In the period up to 2019, we will be carrying out a review for the ALDI North Group with a view to gradually converting all existing stores and distribution centres to LED lighting. The potential of LEDs for saving energy has been confirmed in a number of pilot stores which were entirely converted to LED. The first distribution centres – for example in Belgium – have also been entirely equipped with LED lighting. In 2016, ALDI Portugal opened its first store with an LED lighting system for interior lighting.

Since 2015, we have been using on-demand lighting in the warehouses and utility rooms at newly constructed stores in order to reduce the amount of energy used for lighting. The lights are automatically switched on and off using movement and heat sensors. Windows reaching down to ground level are also used in the store premises so as take maximum advantage of daylight. This measure reduces the use of artificial lighting and saves energy as well.

Cooling technology is another important starting point for more climate protection. Many of our goods are chilled or frozen. These are energy-intensive processes. Self-defrosting freezers are one of the measures we use in order to keep this consumption to a minimum. LED systems are also deployed to illuminate the freezers. LED systems not only consume less electricity, they also generate less heat than conventional lighting systems. This enables us to further reduce the energy necessary for freezing. In 2013, we started to use these technologies in new freezers. We have used cool air curtain technology at our open chiller shelves for many years, which protects the cool environment against the ingress of heat from outside. The shelves are fitted with night-time roller shutters to seal them after closing time. As a comparison, the use of glass doors can increase energy consumption. This is because customers frequently open and close the doors. The energy-saving compressors  and fans enable us to reduce the energy consumption of the chiller shelves by between four and six percent. Apart from Germany, the technologies described are also being used in other countries where the ALDI North Group is operating.

Cooling our products also requires the use of refrigerants. However, the most commonly used refrigerants have a great deal of global warming potential: They can leak into the atmosphere and in this way contribute to global warming. A comparative analysis of our emission sources revealed that around 20 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions result from refrigerant leakage.

The current level of technology does not permit leakages to be entirely eliminated. We are therefore also introducing a digital monitoring system in addition to regular leakage tests at all our German locations. Digital data capture and evaluation enables the system to provide a fast overview of all the cooling systems. This means that leakage rates can be reduced. Since 2014, we have been testing the MobiLec leakage monitoring system in a pilot project at our regional company in Scharbeutz. Since then, fitters have been able to enter all refrigerant leakages in the system directly from the store. In 2015, this enabled us to reduce the leakage rate there to around one percent.

At the same time, we are increasingly replacing the existing refrigerants with climate friendly alternatives – so far in Germany, Denmark and Poland. At these locations, we are gradually converting all chiller and freezer cabinets to the natural refrigerant propane. Its Global Warming Potential is 1,300 times less than the common commercial coolant R404A. In Germany, around 50 percent of the refrigerants has already been converted. We are also currently planning to test the use of CO₂ as a refrigerant at two stores in Germany. In Denmark, we are also using propylene glycol and water as a refrigerant. The Global Warming Potential of CO₂ and propylene glycol is even lower than propane. Since the generally higher temperatures in Portugal place different demands on cooling there, the use of climate friendly alternatives is still being reviewed. R404A continues to be used frequently at our distribution centres. Here too we want to make increasing use of CO₂. We are currently trialling the use of ice storage at a pilot project in Greven. This enables energy generated from a photovoltaic system to be stored on demand and this enhances the energy efficiency of the combined cooling and heating system.

At 65 stores in Germany, we are currently using the heat dissipated from our systems for heating purposes. This is being achieved with the deployment of heat recovery systems which make use of heat from the exhaust air generated by ventilation systems to heat buildings. This technology is also being used at selected stores in other countries where the ALDI North Group is operating: since 2013 in ALDI Netherlands, since 2014 in Poland, and from 2016 in France.

In Germany, we are currently using combined cooling and heating systems at around 80 stores. The systems are also linked to cooling units in order to make use of the dissipated heat. They also permit a real-time evaluation of energy consumption for all devices and help us to monitor the efficiency of the systems. These technologies enable us to significantly reduce the necessary heat energy required for each store. The system has been used in Belgium since 2015 and it is being expanded to other stores in 2016.

We are not only improving our energy efficiency in order to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable energies are also being increasingly used for generating electricity. Since 2012, we have been installing photovoltaic systems on more and more buildings in a number of countries. In 2015, all the installed systems in the ALDI North Group generated a joint rated output of around 14,000 kWp. This means we produced approximately 7,800 MWh of electricity – enough to supply electricity to an average of 1,950 family households in Europe over the course of a year. Consequently, we were able to eliminate emissions amounting to some 4,680 metric tons of CO₂.

We only use a part of the electricity generated by our photovoltaic systems. In 2015, the proportion was around 64 percent. Excess energy that we do not use ourselves is fed into the electricity grid – for example when more electricity is generated in the summer than we are able to use. We are currently testing a new configuration of solar modules at the German locations so that they can provide a more uniform output distributed over the course of the day. Alignment with combined cooling and heating systems enables us to increase our own share of generated solar energy that we are able to use for our own purposes. This not only reduces our CO₂ emissions but also makes sense from an economic point of view.

Our mission is for customers to have fresh produce and full shelves every day. We ensure that this is the case with efficient logistics for transporting our goods. We use optimum transport routes and pool our flow of goods where it increases efficiency. This enables us to reduce the fuel consumed for our transport vehicles and cut greenhouse gas emissions at the same time. We also reduce our fuel requirement by mounting roof spoilers on trucks, which reduce the drag coefficient for our transport vehicles, and by using low rolling resistance tyres. We are also reviewing alternative power units for our trucks in Germany.

In 2015, the ALDI North Group transported goods with a total volume of 29 million euro-pallet spaces between our 74 distribution centres and more than 4,800 stores. We undertake most of these transport journeys ourselves. Our vehicle fleet consists of 1,620 trucks for carrying out this logistic operation. The proportion of deliveries made by the vehicle fleet operated by the ALDI North Group amounts to 89 percent – this means we are able to exert a direct influence on the logistic processes. Poland, Portugal and Spain are the only countries where we do not operate our own vehicle fleet. In 2015, the fuel consumption of our logistic operation amounted to 19 percent of our energy requirement and caused around 13 percent of our CO­₂ emissions. Diesel represented the biggest share of our fuel consumption at 99 percent.

We work continuously on optimising deliveries to our stores in order to reduce our fuel consumption. All the trucks from the ALDI North Group are scheduled to leave our distribution centres with full payloads. Efficient route planning enables us to reduce the number of necessary journeys. In future, we will be in a position to provide even better analysis of goods movements with the help of a new inventory control system – in 2015, it was already successfully tested at our regional companies in Germany. By 2017, we want to have tested the use of alternative power units for vehicles which are more climate friendly.

Waste avoidance is a key target of our sustainable development. Where waste has not yet been eliminated, waste materials are recovered and forwarded for reuse. In some countries, we have a statutory obligation to recover waste. The biggest proportion of waste in food retailing is comprised of transport packaging and food that can no longer be sold. The results of our data capture also confirm this. Packaging waste makes up around 83 percent and this is the biggest proportion of the total waste generated by the ALDI North Group in Germany.

In order to avoid waste, we use multiple-use systems for our transport packaging wherever it makes economic and environmental sense. Most of our fruit and vegetable products are transported in multiple-use boxes instead of conventional cardboard packaging. The system is used in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Luxembourg and Portugal. It was introduced in Spain at the beginning of 2016.

However, single-use packaging is unavoidable in many cases in order to protect our products during transport. In Germany, we use foils and boxes made of recyclable materials so that these can be recovered. The proportion of recovered transport packaging was 100 percent in 2015. The recycling rate of all non-hazardous waste reached 98 percent over the same period.

We plan our goods inventories carefully. Nevertheless, we are not always able to sell all food with short use-by dates. Stores located within the catchment area of a food charity donate a lot of their food which can still be consumed but is no longer saleable. In Germany, the proportion of stores which donate food to aid organisations was 98 percent in 2015, and 77 percent in Spain. We also donate food in other countries. In 2016, a pilot project was launched at two regional companies in the Netherlands. There is a statutory obligation to donate in France – ALDI therefore pursues the objective in France of generating no waste by making donations and through recovery. In 2017, we will introduce a guideline on dealing with food that is no longer saleable, with the aim of further expanding the practice of donating and standardising throughout the Group.

We are not simply concerned about transport packaging, but environmentally compatible product packaging for products is also a top priority. That is why we lay down in the buying process that our suppliers should use sustainable materials as far as possible for the packaging of our goods and should not use, for example, PVC and composite materials, if reasonable and possible. Our focus in the case of wood, board and paper is on recycled materials and raw materials harvested from sustainable forestry management. In 2015, 14 percent of our product packaging and around 21 percent of our outer packaging was made using paper constituents certified with a sustainability seal. A planned purchasing policy is scheduled to regulate the issue of packaging from 2017 in order to increase the proportions of recycled and certified materials.

The operation of a store in the ALDI North Group generally requires less water than an average four-person household. In 2015, we used approximately 548,300 cubic metres of water throughout the ALDI North Group, 432,000 cubic metres of this were used in our stores. We use efficient engineering to save water. For example, baking ovens that are self-cleaning without the addition of water are used in most countries. Furthermore, we also use energy-saving cleaning equipment fitted with efficient dispensing technology and biologically degradable cleaning agents in order to reduce wastewater contamination. When we make decisions on landscaping our facilities in Spain, we cultivate our landscaped areas with plants adapted to the climate so that the amount of water required for irrigation purposes is low. We regularly analyse the data at our locations in order to identify starting points for reducing consumption.