Sainsbury’s is looking to its colleagues and customers to help limit water wastage as it aims to hit its goal of being water neutral by 2040.
The drive comes as the Big 4 grocer is looking to improve its Better for the Planet corporate sustainability agenda in preserving its water supply and reducing its water footprint.
Speaking with Edie, Sainsbury’s group utilities manager, Sophie Coley said: “Colleagues are aware that they need to turn the lights off, but we need to push forward now on water and make sure that everyone is doing all that they can.
“In energy, we know that we can reduce consumption and we can do the same for water through more awareness and marketing of all the good things that we’re doing. Colleagues and customers can help to be our ‘eyes and ears’ for water wastage.”
Explaining Sainsbury’s current achievements, she added: “We’ve been working with Waterscan for a number of years now and have made considerable progress on reducing our water consumption. We use one billion fewer litres of water a year now, compared to 2005.”
Since 2020, 99.5% of Sainsbury’s water is now self-supplied, which Coley said, “is having a big impact on driving efficiency.”
The retailer has also started installing water saving taps, has rainwater harvesting systems at 170 of its sites and had reduced leakage to below 10% of total consumption.
In looking to achieve its long-term water goals, Coley told Edie: “We are now looking at sub-metering at different sites, recognising that different areas within a single supermarket have different consumption and wastage levels.
“No one supermarket is the same as another, so delving into the depths of this data and analysing it against footfall and customer/colleague behaviour, gives us the opportunity to create confident rationales and focus attention appropriately.”
