Solar for more Warehouse Group stores

The Warehouse Group has switched another 34 stores and sites across Auckland to solar energy.

They include The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery, Noel Leeming and the group’s support office.

This move follows the group’s earlier announcement that saw 23 stores and sites go solar in February – now taking the total to 57 in the upper North Island.

”Lighting up stores with solar means cleaner energy and less strain on our national grid,” says the group’s chief sustainability and sourcing officer Mark Anderton.

“Building on our first solar push in February, this latest upgrade is set to slash our Scope 2 emissions by at least 1000 tonnes of CO2e every year – the equivalent of taking 200 cars off the road each year.

“We’re not just cutting down on emissions, but also contributing to the stability and sustainability of New Zealand’s national grid by increasing our solar energy capacity – which we’ve seen under intense pressure recently as winter arrives.”

Anderton says more than 210 of the group’s stores and sites will switch to solar by 2026, helping it achieve zero operational emissions by 2040.

“While solar power significantly reduces our carbon footprint, we’re also making more sustainable choices for our entire supply chain – from our packaging, the materials we make our products with and the factories that make them, to how we move the goods,” says Anderton.

The group has tapped into Lodestone Energy’s 50-hectare Edgecumbe solar farm Rangitaiki to fuel its 34 sites and stores.

While The Warehouse Group earlier committed to transitioning more than 250 stores and sites to solar power by 2026, it has updated this target to more than 210 following the sale of Torpedo7 in March 2024.