The greening of B&Q

The boss of the DIY chain reckons his newest superstore shows the way to a better eco retail future
Julia Finch, City editor
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 February 2009 20.27 GMT

It has a garden centre on stilts 40ft in the air, boasts Britain's biggest building-mounted turbine and a ground source heat pump comprising 108 bore holes, each 100 metres deep.
This, reckons Kingfisher DIY chief executive, Ian Cheshire, is the B&Q of the future.
The new 160,000 sq ft store at New Malden, Surrey, which sits on the edge of the A3 artery into London, is the best the store group could do, says Cheshire, in terms of green technology. It uses harvested rainwater to feed the plants in the garden centre and to flush toilets. There is a photovoltaic system, solar thermal water heating panels and a sedum-planted green roof to absorb CO2.
The store's emissions will be half those of a standard B&Q store and are a big leap towards the group's plans to develop a zero-emission store by 2012.
B&Q has had among the greenest credentials of the UK's retailers for some time. It was among the first to insist on FSC certified timber and, two years ago, started selling wind turbines for domestic users, although they were taken off the shelves last week amid growing concerns that they are not even half as efficient as had been claimed.
But the company is one of 12 organisations in England and Scotland to receive a Carbon Trust Standard – a certificate that shows which companies have made genuine reductions in their carbon emissions.
While New Malden might be green, Cheshire also expects the store to perform. The man charged with turning around the DIY empire, which had seen its sales and profits slump even before the economic downturn set in, expects this store to be the second or third biggest earner in his 320-strong portfolio and thinks this new-look outlet is what will enable B&Q to "bounce" out of this recession when the recovery comes.
Shares in Kingfisher, Europe's biggest home improvements retailer, have approximately halved over the past two years, but have steadied since July on hopes that the chief executive's recovery plan – a mix of cost savings and expansion in stronger markets such as France and Poland – might mitigate the effects of the downturn.
New Malden bears no resemblance to the old-style B&Q sheds, which had earned a reputation as gloomy stores with poor customer service and yawning gaps on the shelves. A gleaming store stacked high with new stock is only to be expected on day one with the boss in attendance, but this store has a very different look not least because it has vast glass roof panels and bright lighting (which automatically adjusts according to external light levels to save power).
It is arranged as 17 shop-in-shops, each supposed to be able to compete with a specialist retailer. So the lighting department which, at 10,000 sq ft is half the size of a high street supermarket, stocks everything from standard paper shades to a decidedly "aspirational" £310 black glass chandelier.
Over in tiling, the range is from the standard white bathroom tile to hand made mosaic tiles made from recycled glass. Beautiful, but at £1,000 per sq metre, not standard B&Q territory.
"People are getting much pickier", says Cheshire, as a result of the recession. "They want very good product and they want very cheap too. If you are just selling the mid-range you are going to get killed."
So there is also a £200 kitchen tap and solid wood flooring at £53 per sq metre alongside the £3.98 laminate.
There are 36 full kitchens and a vast selection of bathrooms. Soft furnishings are displayed by colour and an interior designer wanders the aisle to offer advice to customers. "It is about home improvement, but it is much more about home fashion", explains Cheshire. The store has been trading for some 10 days before yesterday's official opening and so far, says the boss, it is attracting in exactly the female shoppers that he wants.
A builders' yard for trade customers, meanwhile, stands across the car park. But it is not an afterthought. Cheshire has recently boarded up the group's fledgling Trade Depot business, but still reckons trade is a big opportunity for B&Q. He believes the chain should be able to attract 6% of the £25bn market, but does just half that at the moment.
The turbine and heat source pump may be big, but so far they are nowhere near producing the electricity needed to run the store, which has six running escalators to take shoppers to and from the store two floors up. Together the turbine and pump will produce only 17% of the power the store requires.
And while it is currently the greenest the company can manage, it could also be the last to be equipped with such eco-friendly facilities. Their efficiency will be assessed over the next six months before any others are commissioned.
Cheshire admits the eco-measures must also make economic sense and that calculation "is different when oil is $40 a barrel".