Applegreen, Ireland’s largest independent forecourt retailer, which has 80 sites in Ireland and the UK, has signed a deal with Nootrol, the Irish green procurement firm, to measure and track carbon emissions. Under the programme Applegreen will use Nootrol’s supply chain and green procurement management cloud computing service to collaborate, share and exchange sustainability and carbon performance data across its supply chain partners.
“As a significant business in the UK and Ireland we feel we have a responsibility to demonstrate leadership in the area of climate change,” says Frank Pyne, Applegreen sustainability spokesperson on the project. “We have selected the online Nootrol service as it is the only one that can provide us with visibility deep into our entire supply chain, not just direct Tier-1 suppliers. It is intuitive, easy to use and most importantly equips us and our suppliers with the means to achieve real reductions in energy, carbon and costs across our entire supply chains.”
Mark Kearns, chief executive of Nootrol, comments: “Although there is currently no mandatory obligation to report a company’s carbon emissions there is increased public, investor and stakeholder pressure to integrate carbon management within Corporate Social Responsibility programmes that usually involve suppliers. More and more companies are now realising that by measuring their carbon emissions substantial cost savings can be generated for both businesses and suppliers.”
The news follows a recent report by management and technology consultancy BearingPoint which found that green supply chain initiatives across Europe are being increasingly driven by bottom line issues rather than regulation.