Sustainability practitioner
Ross Greenhalgh
Company : Tesco Stores Ltd
Description of person (max 750 words) : I am submitting my nomination for this award because
through my work I have demonstrated that through good operation of environmental assets,
businesses can make profit as well as save carbon; true sustainability.
Executive Summary
Through my Lean Six Sigma Green Belt project work, I changed the way Tesco runs its CHP fleet,
increasing profit and reducing our carbon footprint. By considering all factors and modelling the
units, profitability increased by 20%-50%, far exceeding the target of 5% and making the company’s
sustainable business strategy work at an operational level.
Background
In the current economy, it is more important than ever that sustainable business strategies are both
financially and environmentally viable. As part of Tesco’s strategy it has been installing gas CHPs on
major developments for the past few years.
It was clear that we could operate and control our CHP systems better to make them more
profitable, while maintaining the carbon benefits. We have:
 158 gas CHPs
 Installed capacity of 20 MWe
 Two operators – Cogenco and EnerG.
Until recently, we have operated our CHPs with one strategy applied across all sites, a simple and
effective approach, but not sustainable for continued investment from the business.
Planning
I agreed a brief with my project’s sponsor to define the problem – we can control and operate our
CHP systems better. I used a series of project management tools to understand the processes and
then value stream mapped these to identify waste.
Of utmost importance was the root cause of why we ran the engines the way we did. I used a
fishbone approach to figure out the causes considering:
 Materials
 Machines
 Manpower
 Mother Nature
 Measurement
 Methods
Through stakeholder engagement I gathered an understanding of what our customers were looking
for, as well as what the business needed. The key issues were energy price, weather, budgeting
approach and data.
No capital was required, but changes to the revenue budgets involved needed agreement through
the business. The proposed timelines for the project ran from November to April, with a target to
improve profit by 5%.
Innovation
I started by looking at the short-term operation, but stakeholder feedback showed the longer term
also needed to be tackled.
Data was the first issue, which I resolved by working with EICT (our energy data supplier) to generate
the right data in the right format.
I also resolved budgeting issues by working with budget owners and our Finance teams to agree that
the changes were the right thing to do overall, despite being more beneficial to some than others.
The final element was an automated model to address the remaining issues. I created a model
combining all the metrics that encompass running of gas CHP, including, but not limited to:
 Energy price
 Climate Change Levy (CCL)
 Carbon
 Weather
 Regional heat demand profiles
 Engine inputs and outputs (kWh and £)
 Maintenance
This allowed me to create a full-year forecast alongside the short-term, tactical forecast. This helped
to maximise the profitability in both respects while maintaining the carbon contribution to long-term
targets.
Efficiency improvements
I achieved improvements by running the engines proactively rather than reactively - smarter, not
harder. Running the engines at the right time of day, week and year established the profitability
increase.
Delivery
The delivery of the project involved setting up a simple communication process with the operators
to tell them when to run the engines.
No disruption to operations was anticipated, because the CHPs are lead boilers - meaning the boilers
pick up any heat demand when the CHP is off. As a precaution, I engaged our maintenance team and
we agreed that any issues would be escalated back. One issue occurred at a site that had the boilers
in manual override, but this was promptly resolved.
Results
No capital budget was required for the project, all changes to the revenue budgets were agreed
through the correct processes. The analysis phase took longer than hoped, but ‘quick wins’ were
implemented before the trial and the project got back on track before the end.
The profitability improvements ranged from 20% to 50% depending on the engine, exceeding the
target of 5 %.
The key conclusion was that if environmental initiatives are not financially sustainable for
businesses, then they are not truly sustainable. Correct operation of these assets can go a long way
to turning around the perception that saving carbon costs money.