A pop up shop where you can get broken devices repaired. A vegetable garden for the community. Or an informative session on green energy. Customers of the Lidl in 's Gravenzande are full of great ideas to make their neighborhood more sustainable, as it turned out last year. For several weeks, they could submit suggestions. The winning idea would then actually be implemented. The Lidl in 's Gravenzande participated in a study by RVO, MVI-E and Topsector Energie, which was conducted by design agency Ideate. The purpose of the research: to discover whether local market parties, such as supermarkets, can play a role in neighborhood-oriented energy transition. After all, little is known about this yet - most energy transition programs focus on citizens and government.
Living Lab
The research took the shape of a Living Lab: a local-level collaboration of citizens, government and market players working toward a common goal. Kate Spierings, who led the research from Ideate, explains: "First, we asked the municipality of Westland and Lidl 's Gravenzande to participate. Then we devised the approach together. So that turned into the action in which residents were asked to send in their sustainable idea.' With a energy-neutral store, tens of thousands of solar panels on roofs of stores, offices and distribution centers and charging points for electric cars of customers, it is not surprising that Lidl was asked to participate in the study. 'We immediately found the approach of the research interesting,' says Arnold Baas, team leader Energy at Lidl Netherlands. 'We were curious to see how customers would respond if a supermarket were to engage in neighborhood energy transition.'
Although Lidl, Ideate and the municipality of Westland initially wanted to limit the contest only to ideas for making the neighborhood natural gas-free, they soon concluded that a broader approach was needed. Kate: "We know from previous research that "sustainability" is a very broad concept for people. Not just saving energy, but things like a clean and tidy living environment, producing less waste and throwing away less food are all part of it and connected to each other. Arnold adds: 'It is very valuable to let clients themselves indicate what they understand by sustainability in the neighborhood. That would give us interesting insights. It was therefore decided to ask clients for ideas for sustainable activities in the neighborhood, without the project team specifying the term "sustainability."
Clean-up day with the community
This proved to be a success: in just a few weeks, over a hundred ideas were submitted to the Lidl branch in 's Gravenzande. A jury consisting of people from Ideate, Lidl, the municipality of Westland and RVO selected the top three. Then it was the turn of the residents of 's Gravenzande to vote for their favorite idea. The winner was obvious: with a substantial majority of votes, Gré won with her idea to organize a clean-up day with the community for her neighborhood. 'It may not be something you immediately associate with sustainability,' says Arnold. 'Yet we were pleased with the result. A cleanup day like this creates a mutual connection and provides an opportunity to engage in conversation with residents. That contact makes other conversations and collaborations, for example in the field of energy transition, easier. So it's actually a very nice starting point.
Kate points out that the cleanup day was actually a very good fit for the neighborhood. 'Sustainability is a process. It starts with awareness about the environment and producing less waste, for example. After that, you might start separating your waste. That way, you take one small step further each time. The measures that governments often think of in sustainability, such as solar panels or heat pumps, are actually very advanced steps. Someone who is still at the beginnig of the process is not ready for that at all. The project leader explains that many residents of the neighborhood where the project took place are still pretty much at the beginning of the process. "So the cleanup day was a perfect fit for the phase they were in.”
Feeling good
At the time of the clean-up day, in November 2021, Leen Snijders was an alderman in the Westland municipality. With public space in his portfolio, he was invited to officially open the festive day. 'It was a wonderful day,' he looks back. 'The local residents were up for it, the municipality provided garden equipment and arranged the disposal of green waste, and Lidl provided organic and fair trade food and drinks for all participants. People came together and collectively contributed to a beautiful, well-kept neighborhood. That makes me feel good. Kate noticed that during the lunch break, the participating residents naturally started talking about solar panels, insulating glass and other energy-saving measures. 'That showed very nicely that people don't see all these aspects of sustainability isolated. And so when you take part in a sustainable activity, in this case cleaning up the neighborhood, chances are that you automatically start thinking about other sustainability options.'
Former alderman Leen Snijders thinks that supermarkets, as well as other stores, can play quite a role in the energy transition. 'The energy transition is quite a difficult, big subject for many people. In a supermarket or other store, they come into contact with it in an approachable way. That might make the step to actually do something about it themselves smaller.' Arnold agrees: "We noticed that the action brought us into dialogue with our customers in a different way. Often you only talk to customers when there is something wrong. Now conversations about the action and about sustainability arose ... that too is a meaningful connection.' Arnold also mentions the cooperation with the other participating partners. 'You get to know each other in a different way. That strengthens the mutual relation.'
Entrepreneurship
Kate is looking back on a successful project as well. 'Our goal was to investigate whether market parties, such as a supermarket, could play a role in the energy transition. The answer to that is positive. The entrepreneurship of market parties, such as supermarkets, is very valuable. They are good at understanding customer needs. You can use that to make the energy transition appealing to the public. Moreover, through supermarkets you also reach target groups for whom measures such as solar panels are less feasible because of a lower income, but who are still able to take small steps. By capitalizing on that, the likelihood of success is much greater. The project leader 'absolutely' sees opportunities to scale up the method further. Whether Lidl would participate in such a project again? 'We are definitely receptive to that,' says Arnold. 'We think sustainability is important. If we can help our customers make sustainable choices as well, of course, that's great.'
More information
The project 'Shopping for Climate' was created through the program “Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Ondernemen met Energie” of the Topsector Energie and RVO.
Meer informatie
Het project ‘Shopping for Climate’ kwam tot stand vanuit het programma’s Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Ondernemen met Energie van de Topsector Energie en RVO.