Massmart celebrates having grown its renewable generation capacity by over 1000% this Earth Day. Since starting the roll-out of onsite solar plants in 2016 at two Makro sites.

Massmart has grown its annual generating capacity from approximately 580 000 kWh of renewable energy per annum to over 11 million kWh per annum over the last ten years. In the past year, Massmart has built a further five onsite solar plants bringing its solar portfolio to a total of 23 sites.

Makro and Builders stores as well as Massmart distribution centres are carefully selected for on-site solar installation, where the daytime energy requirements of the site determine the appropriate size of the plant. This means that each site’s generating capacity differs based on its size and energy requirements and can produce between approximately 200 000 kWh and 1 500 000 kWh of renewable energy per annum. Nicole Atcheson, Sustainability Manager at Massmart explains, “The continued roll-out of onsite solar at Massmart has been key to driving down our annual Greenhouse Gas Emissions. To date, Massmart has generated ~52 million kWh of renewable energy and since inception, the group has avoided the release of ~55 000 tonnes of CO2 Equivalent Gases. The continued expansion of our solar footprint puts us on the right path towards becoming less carbon intensive in our business.”

Commenting on the continuation of the expansion plan, Salosh Gounder, Real Estate Vice President at Massmart said, “Based on the continuously improving performance of our solar programme, we intend to roll out further solar plants across our portfolio and we remain committed not only to increasing the number of sites with solar but also increasing the capacity of our existing plants, where possible.”

Massmart remains committed to becoming a low carbon retailer and reducing pressure on the national grid.

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