Switching off signs as soon as they close, reducing lighting, even lowering the temperature: the retail sector, from E.Leclerc to Picard via Carrefour or Casino, has agreed on a plan for “energy sobriety “which will be deployed in the fall, according to a press release sent on Monday.
In a video published on July 15, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister for Energy Transition, presented the axes of the “energy sobriety” plan announced the day before by Emmanuel Macron in his presidential interview on July 14. “The hunt for gaspi, it starts right away with the air conditioning,” she said. We must make “an effort to reduce our energy consumption: fuel, natural gas, electricity, by 10%” with a view to “reducing our greenhouse gas emissions” and “doing without Russian gas in the coming years”.
President @EmmanuelMacron announced a plan to #sobriety energy.
What is that ? ???? pic.twitter.com/hugInoaJYQ
– Agnès Pannier-Runacher @ (@AgnesRunacher) July 15, 2022
In this context, the major retail brands agreed on Monday on this common “energy sobriety” plan, which will be applied from October 15. On the program: extinction of the signs as soon as it closes, lowering the temperature, or even reducing the lighting.
See also: “The war will last“: Macron prepares the French for constraints of “energy sobriety“
“Faced with the risk of electricity supply shortages announced by the government for this winter”, the Perifem federation, which brings together all the distribution players to act on energy or environmental issues, has defined “common and concrete measures to reduce energy consumption in stores, starting October 15.
It is planned to turn off the illuminated signs “as soon as the store closes” – against generally one hour after closing at present – and to “systematise the reduction in light intensity”, by halving the lighting of the surface of sale before the public arrives and 30% during “critical periods of consumption”.
President Emmanuel Macron explained on July 14 that the State was preparing an energy “sobriety plan” to deal with the risk of shortages linked to the war in Ukraine, calling for “collective return to a logic of sobriety”.
See also: Despite the risk of shortage, France will supply Germany with gas
These first measures, which have been taken by E.Leclerc, Carrefour, Système U, Les Mousquetaires Intermarché, Auchan, Casino, Franprix, Monoprix, Lidl and even Picard, are also cost-saving measures for retailers, faced with the rise the cost of energy.
While “the electricity bill represented 30%” of the net income of the brands “before the recent surges in energy costs”, it is “essential to reduce the energy bill and to mobilize together to avoid too significant an impact on the price for consumers”, recognizes the federation, while the Élan Law also provides for a reduction in energy consumption in stores by 40% by 2030.
The Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher welcomed in a press release these “first commitments announced by Perifem”.
“This is a first step that has been taken, with immediate measures, which the minister had called for”, indicated his cabinet, while calling for “continuing this work and going further”, because “it is It’s about taking all the measures that will produce immediate effects to get through winter, but also to sustainably reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.”
“The time has come for energy sobriety, this will profoundly change our consumption habits”, estimated in the Perifem press release its president, Thierry Cotillard, for whom this protocol “must be long-term”.
The federation also wants to believe that this protocol can serve “as a basis for all trade and distribution federations for the generalization of these measures”, which will be presented to them “at a meeting on July 26”.