Meijer and carbon management

Abstract

Abstract Meijer is a family-owned retailer in the Midwest who pioneered the one-stop-shopping concept. This 85-year-old company is committed to energy, refrigerant, and logistics management to reduce the company’s carbon footprint intensity, not only because it makes business sense, but because it is the right thing to do. Meijer operates 248 superstores and grocery stores in six states with associated greenhouse gas emissions from lighting, heating, cooling, refrigeration, and logistics. Through a combination of focused engineering, and proactive lifecycle management throughout its operations, Meijer has been able to reduce the carbon intensity of its operations as the company continues to grow. Meijer’s dedicated energy and engineering team is well on the way to reducing electricity use in stores by 20% by 2020, based on a 2010 baseline. Implementing energy efficiency projects to meet this goal, along with proactive management of refrigerant systems, has enabled this team to continue to drive down greenhouse gas emissions intensity in the retail area. Meijer’s distribution and logistics teams are also contributing to this reduction through replacement of older tractor trailers with clean diesel and hybrid models in addition to innovations in logistics planning to minimize truck miles traveled. Looking to the future, Meijer sees the next frontier of decarbonizing its operations in proactive lifecycle management, technology, and systems innovation.