Energy Efficiency

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:32 pm on 8 February 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:32, 8 February 2022

I thank Carolyn Thomas for those important questions, Llywydd. She's absolutely right that the use of doors on fridges has been shown to save energy, reduce food spoilage, and therefore save businesses money. And with the cost of energy rising as it is, there surely are greater incentives for businesses to do just what the Member suggested. And she's right, times are changing.

Now, there is some very good work going on amongst some supermarkets. Sainsbury's, for example, has worked with Imperial College London on its zero-carbon strategy, and that includes many initiatives of the sort that the Member has identified. Aldi, we know, is to save the equivalent of 2,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year by installing fridge doors as standard in its new and newly refurbished stores. It carried out an experiment, the experiment was successful, and now it's doing it right across the range of its stores. We've got other initiatives going on in Wales in that energy-saving field. Tesco is trialling the use of all-electric heavy goods vehicles at its south Wales distribution centre—the first part of the United Kingdom to have those all-electric vehicles.

Now, the point is, as I think Carolyn Thomas was suggesting, that we need the good practice of the leading players to be learnt by everybody else. And the retail strategy is an opportunity for us to help to make that happen. Lesley Griffiths meets regularly with the retail sector, where we discuss a whole range of issues of relevance to Wales, and energy efficiency is certainly one of them. And the strategy is an opportunity to pull some of that together and encourage those who, in the past, have been reluctant, because they believe that fridge doors, for example, might negatively impact on sales, to take the successful steps that others have already demonstrated you can do—successfully from the point of view of the customer, but also with real energy-saving advantages.