OREANDA-NEWS. Bertrand Swiderski, Group CSR Director,  gave a presentation at the Ethos 360° conference,  the largest conference on sustainable development in Latin America, about Carrefour’s sustainable development policies, notably our actions to fight climate change in stores and transportation.

He spoke extensively of Carrefour’s commitments to cut CO2 emissions by 40% in 2025 compared with their 2010 levels, as well as efforts to make stores “energy-independent” and educe wastage. He also focused on the fact that all efforts must be collective, using the example of how Carrefour woks with suppliers to protect biodiversity and devop traceability of products through actions like the Rainforest Alliance on beef meat certification.

In Brazil, more than 60% of the energy used in Carrefour stores comes from alternative energy sources, such as wind power, biomass and small hydroelectric power plants. It has also adopted a number of simple measures such as using low-energy LED light bulbs for store lighting and replacing refrigeration units by closed-door models. These measures alone have reduced CO2 emissions per square meter of sales area by more than 25% over the last year. And as far as logistics is concerned, improving the delivery process has reduced the number of journeys made, preventing 300 tons of CO2 from being emitted in 2014.