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Please Close The Door
In my second rant of the month I am asking people to consider the impact from leaving doors open when entering shops. Some shops are required to prop doors open, as this is company policy, such as the Body Shop, GAP Kids, Waterstones and Holland & Barrett, to name and shame some of the offending companies (for more check on this article from the Times). The logic of which means wasted energy in heating (or in Summer cooling) the shop, cold / hot drafts and cold / hot staff. Not only does this waste energy but reduces staff productivity.So next time your Christmas shopping why not consider shutting that door behind you even if it was open in the first place, if not only to keep the staff in skimpy tees warm. Wrestling staff to the ground may be an over reaction should they open the door again, but you can always just walk out as easy, maybe closing the door behind you could make a statement.
If one store (the size of Body Shop) halved the hours that its air-conditioning was on for a period of six months, it could save 3,700kWh of electricity. Saving 1.67t of CO2 emissions.
If you have a brand to name and shame for similarly wasteful practices please add them to the list of shame below. I shall be shop spotting on Monday with handfuls of pictures to create a collage of open doors, league of shame, and hall of fame.
1 comment:
I used to be active in FoE before i got disillusioned with them, and we ran a campaign in Leicester to get shops in the city centre to close their doors about fifteen years ago. I noticed recently that they are once again leaving their doors open and heating them too much. I am no longer at all enamoured of the Body Shop, but can't see how they can even pretend to have Green credentials if this is actually company policy.
For the record, offenders in Leicester city centre today included WHSmith (can't remember any others right now).
Another issue is that shops are far too hot. I think this is due to several factors. People heat their houses too much, they walk around outside with far too few clothes on and the shops perceive it as welcoming. I also wonder what the legal minimum is for temperatures in workplaces, and whether this is too high.
I would say a room temperature of sixteen centigrade is fine for a home, so why not a shop?
You have motivated me to get onto the local Friends of the Earth and have a chat with them. Thanks for that.
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