To go green at the point of sale, most people think of cutting plastic bag usage. However, in a growing number of Sainsbury’s stores, that’s not the only change at the tills designed with the environment in mind.
The retailer may have promised to halve plastic bag usage by 2009, but it is already making strides in sustainability with a project that has been much less well-publicised. Since March last year, the retailer has begun to roll out NCR’s RealPOS two-sided thermal receipt printers. The devices print the receipt over both sides of the paper, cutting the amount of paper used by 42 per cent.
Sainsbury’s says that feedback from customers has been positive and the move also goes towards one of its five corporate social responsibility aims: to have respect for the environment and reduce energy, packing and waste.
The project began with a pilot across 25 till lanes at a store in Maidenhead. At that time, Sainsbury’s became the first European retailer to install the double-sided devices at its checkouts. From there, the grocer took the decision to use the devices in all new stores. Since then, it has extended the project and the technology should be rolled out to between 7,000 and 8,000 lanes by the end of this year. In total, Sainsbury’s has committed to rolling out the printers to about half its stores. Once these devices are in place, the paper saving will equate to half a million till rolls each year.
NCR account director Andy Johnson explains that Sainsbury’s was open to testing what was a new technology at the time, to see how well it could perform operationally and in terms of environmental and financial impact. He says: “Sainsbury’s wanted to trial the new technology to see if it was the right fit and what the cost savings could be.”
Another of the grocer’s corporate responsibility principles is to source with integrity. Last year, Sainsbury’s committed to selling 100 per cent recycled own-brand printer paper. Likewise, all of Sainsbury’s own-brand toilet rolls, kitchen towels and tissues are produced using wood fibre certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
WIDER IMPACT
This sourcing commitment has even been extended to asking questions about where the till rolls originate. NCR says that Sainsbury’s was keen to ensure that the paper used in the printers comes from managed sources. So NCR now guarantees that the paper it supplies to Sainsbury’s is produced from sources such as wood plantations, regulated forests, recycled sawmill waste and arboreal debris, to minimise the impact of the paper that is used.
Another cost and environmental benefit is that the devices use 35 to 50 per cent less energy than other suppliers’ till printers. The calculations on the wider impact of this change don’t end there. NCR has worked out that, once Sainsbury’s has installed 9,500 devices in about half its stores, it will save 186 metric tonnes of paper a year.
The switch will also reduce the grocer’s carbon dioxide output by 284 tonnes a year. This reduction in its carbon footprint comes not just from the reduction in paper usage, but also savings in transport and energy from using less paper and power. For instance, NCR estimates that using less till rolls will save 76,691 litres in diesel and produce a 12 million litre saving in waste water.
Finally, another of Sainsbury’s aims is to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill by 5 per cent by 2010. By almost halving the length of receipts, it will achieve a 269 cubic metre reduction in landfill each year.
Customers also benefit from a more manageable till receipt and a slightly quicker transaction time. Johnson estimates that a second is shaved off each transaction as the device prints the receipt on both sides simultaneously. While this might not seem a huge leap forward, seconds count at the tills for retailers who serve large volumes of customers.
Sainsbury’s wants to cut carbon emissions by 25 per cent by 2012, compared with its footprint in 2004/05. While a project like this may not seem as grand as some of the more well-known plastic bag and packaging initiatives, the environmental benefits all add up.
In the long run, lots of smaller projects such as this, carried out by many retailers, will make a big difference.
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