The Nag

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Supermarket fridges

So maybe we all hate supermarkets, and love our local markets, deli shops, grocers etc. etc. but we all find ourselves in one occasionally. So I was in the Co-Op the other day, and I quite like the Co-Op as a company, but bloody hell, their fridge aisle was absolutely freezing! It got me thinking, how much energy to supermarkets waste by using open fridges? It’s ludicrous. A worthwhile nag?

Posted by christiantownsley 5 months ago

It sounds like the beginning of a fantastic nag! Would you like to make it? Wouldn’t take long.

We’ve made it possible for people to make their own nags.

www.thenag.net/diy_nags

What would the action be? To send a postcard to your nearest supermarket about their fridges? Would you find the email addresses of the appropriate people in the major supermarkets and publicise them in your nag, inviting people to get in touch about the fridges? Whatever you think would work.

I know you’d get a lot of support for it, people mention it quite a lot. I popped into M&S yesterday at Waterloo station and the cold air hit me about three meters before I entered the store. Insane waste of energy.

They say they do it because people buy less if they have to open a door to get to the food. But we open the doors of our cupboards to get food all the time. We’re pretty good at opening doors. Well trained. Maybe we need to tell them that we’re very able and willing to open doors to get food, please will they give us doors…

The DIY nag is currently in beta stage. The idea this week is to get people creating nags and trying it out – so drop me a line if you have any suggestions for improvement. Also if you think, don’t really fancy it, it would be interesting to know why.

Cheers and all the best,

The Nag

Posted by The Nag 5 months ago
On a related note, a while ago I met a guy who installs heating, cooling & lighting in big supermarkets. He claimed that for the big chains, 70% of their energy bill actually goes on LIGHTING. Apparently people buy more stuff when it’s really brightly lit – therefore there’s an arms race between the different companies to make their shops the brightest. If anyone’s ever in a supermarket after hours, the lighting is at a much lower level – plenty bright enough to see everything for the shelf stackers and workers.

If this is true – then getting them all to reduce their lighting wattage would have a significant impact on their energy usage. Is anybody reading this in a position to know any more about this?

Posted by bigbuzzard 4 months ago

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