RETAILER Shoprite’s Checkers Sitari and the entire Sitari Village Mall located close to Somerset West, Cape Town, have become South Africa’s first premium supermarket and shopping centre to run entirely off renewable energy from wind and solar sources.
Shoprite Group sustainability manager Sanjeev Raghubir said: “The commitment to renewable energy is part of Checkers’ wider climate change strategy, which acknowledges that climate change will, directly and indirectly, impact our business and the communities, we are a part of.”
“Therefore, we commit to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, continuously improve energy efficiency, and strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of our operations and that of our communities,” Raghubir said.
Shoprite said enabling Checkers Sitari to run entirely off renewable energy was the result of a 635kWp rooftop solar PV installation and an agreement with Eskom’s Renewable Energy Tariff (RET) programme, which allowed customers to source up to 100 percent of their electricity from renewable resources.
The Sitari Village Mall, with Checkers as the anchor tenant, would generate 35 percent of its electricity from its rooftop solar PV system. The remaining 65 percent - 1752 MWh of renewable energy – would be sourced from power utility Eskom’s wind plant via the RET programme.
“This is enough to power the entire centre, including the Checkers supermarket, entirely on renewables,” it said.
The development comes as the retailer launches an environmental campaign, including the recycling of tons of cardboard and plastic, using recycled content in packaging, reducing food and plastic waste, sourcing products with sustainably sourced ingredients, and increasingly using renewable electricity.
Shoprite said it had committed to procuring 434 000 MWh of renewable energy a year from a specialist energy trader through its renewable energy procurement project, the first of its kind in Africa.
BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE