Tesco to spend £100 million greening its stores

London, 27 April: Tesco is to invest £100 million ($179 million) in installing renewable energy systems in new stores and reducing its energy use. The UK-based supermarket giant has set a target of halving average energy use across all its buildings by 2010 from 2000 levels.

Tesco made the announcement after reporting a 13.7% surge in annual profits to £2.3 billion for 2005-06.

Where possible, stores will be fitted with wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal power, combined heat and power or trigeneration systems (where power, heat and cooling are produced at the same time). Tesco will also be trialling gasification (converting waste into energy) at its depots.

Renewable technologies have already been installed in a number of its stores, including a 'green' hypermarket in Bangkok which boasts what the company claims is the largest solar array on any retailer in the region.

Some of the £100 million will also be spent on initiatives to make recycling more attractive to its customers. Tesco hopes to double the volume of waste it collects for recycling, and the firm is planning a supermarket in Norfolk, in the east of England, which will be built entirely from recycled materials.

Terry Leahy, chief executive of Tesco, said: "We share the concerns of our customers around the world about what is happening to the environment and know that we can play a positive and active role on these issues."

But Sandra Bell, supermarket campaigner at Friends of the Earth, was unconvinced. "It is welcome news that any company is taking action to tackle its carbon emissions, but Tesco still has a long way to go.

"If it is to make a genuine contribution to tackling climate change, Tesco would have to make more fundamental changes to the way it does business. There is no commitment here to source more food locally, instead of flying it in from around the world and trucking it unnecessarily up and down the country."