4.3 Committed to cutting emissions
The company´s commitment to cutting emissions is a priority aspect of its sustainable development strategy given its importance as a logistics player - with 38 distribution platforms and 740,439m2 of warehouse floor space - and the intensive use of energy required by the retail business. In 2015, DIA´s logistics activities - across all its markets - generated greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 131,498,024 kg of carbon dioxide. This marked a year-on-year decline in all markets except for Spain, where the increase in emissions was directly related to growth in the store network and logistics platform.
Having developed a proprietary tool for calculating the carbon footprint of its facilities and activities, DIA was in a position to monitor its emissions on an automated basis in 2015. This tool further enables oversight of the company’s performance in this respect over time and evaluation of the various measures introduced to reduce emissions.
The DIA Group has been fine-tuning its logistics chain in terms of both the distance travelled and the use of more fuel-efficient engines. Against this backdrop, the company has gradually brought down its fuel consumption (measured per thousand units of products sold) in recent years, specifically lowering consumption from 5.92 litres in 2014 to 5.46 in 2015
DIA is currently working on three fronts to reduce fuel consumption:
Use of high-capacity modes of transport modes that boost load capacity per format by as much as 15% compared to other formats.
Use of the back-hauling method, which consists of filling the delivery trucks with merchandise from nearby suppliers after dropping off goods at the stores and taking it back to the warehouse.
Use of alternative means of transport such as shipping and rail.
DIA has a route optimisation system which reviews existing routes periodically to ensure warehouse-to-store trips are as efficient as possible. As well as monitoring the hypothetical kilometres travelled by its carriers in this manner, the company is also working on optimising truck loads as a result of which it achieving a considerable reduction in trip numbers.
In 2015, the company continued with the pilot test initiated in 2014 for the use of more fuel-efficient truck engines. Specifically in Portugal the company tested trucks equipped with the Euro 6 system and the plan is to increase the fleet of trucks using this system.
DIA Portugal also introduced a new container format with higher capacity which delivered a reduction in the number of trips and trucks.
Elsewhere, by using video-conferencing to hold meetings with other countries, DIA prevented travel to these markets, generating considerable emissions savings in respect of transportation and overnight hotel stays.