Creation of a sustainability monitoring tool for a retail store

Abstract

This bachelor thesis had three goals: assessing the current environmental situation of the grocery store Super U Chatou along with the costs associated with the sectors causing environmental impacts, finding out possible ameliorations to the current situation and creating an sustainability performance monitoring tool that could help the managing team to track their environmental impacts and target the areas that trigger the biggest impacts. As grocery stores generate a lot of waste and need a big energy, water and chemical consumption to suit the marketing needs, an environmental impact analysis and monitoring procedure is necessary to help reducing their environmental footprint to the maximum.

Two methods were used to research the current situation: theoretical researches from various Internet resources and practical in-situ researches – through asking the workers and analyzing the store receipts and documents. The possible ameliorations were researched by comparing theoretical data with the current situation. The tool was created with Microsoft Excel® by broadening the current and ameliorated situations information through the design of specific formulas. The sustainability indicator was also created with specific formulas derived from the current and ameliorated situations’ data.