Tesco goes electric

The Sunday Times
May 31, 2009
John Waples

Tesco, Britain’s biggest supermarket group, is backing electric cars. The food retailer is to start providing charging facilities in its car parks for battery-powered vehicles.
The new initiative, which will start in London, could be rolled out nationally if it proves a success with customers.
It underlines the priority that all retailers are placing on promoting green issues.
Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco’s chief executive, told The Sunday Times: “As Arnie Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, has said, ‘you have to make it cool to be green’.

“Businesses have to show how the consumer can make a difference.”
Tesco will test the electric-car facility at two stores. The intention is to recharge a battery within two hours, but it is in talks with several companies to see if this can be shortened.
In a speech this week at the London School of Economics, Leahy will say tax and regulation are not the way to make consumers convert to a greener lifestyle.
“The danger is people are so taxed already that every time green is mentioned it is with a new tax that just switches people off the whole subject.”
As part of its drive to cut carbon emissions, Tesco will also announce that it is to build the world’s first zero-carbon store in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire.