Ahold – Andrea Sandor – 2009

Goals

Andrea Sandor spent her summer as a Climate Corps fellow at Stop and Shop/Giant, a subsidiary of Ahold, an international group of quality supermarkets based in the U.S. and Europe. A MBA student at University of Pennsylvania, Sandor was tasked with identifying opportunities for cost savings and energy efficiency improvements for Ahold’s Stop and Shop and Giant stores. 

Solutions

After speaking with several Stop and Shop store managers, Sandor began to see the potential of employee behavior change to achieving energy savings. She began to wonder, if each store trained employees to make small behavioral changes, when combined could the changes across all stores amount to large reductions in energy efficiency? For example, one small change she identified is for each store to close the loading dock door one hour more each day. In addition to behavior change, Sandor analyzed investment of Night Shades, thermal curtains that block ambient heat that normally enters open refrigeration display cases used for items like milk, meat and cheese.

Potential Impact

Sandor calculated that with training, even if only 1 percent of Stop and Shop stores made behavior changes in the use of lighting, doors, kitchens, refrigeration and building temperature settings, Ahold could reduce CO2 emissions by 4,200 metric tons and energy costs by $1.3 million annually. She also calculated that if Ahold installed night shades in all of Ahold’s Stop and Shop stores, the company could avoid over 8,000 metric tons of CO2 per year and save approximately $3.5 million over the life of the night shades.