Decathlon Malaysia is installing rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) facilities in one of their biggest stores; Decathlon Shah Alam.
According to Atul Gupta, Decathlon Malaysia Expansion Leader, “With this initiative, we will be cutting the carbon emissions of Shah Alam store by 38% per annum. Moving forward all of our new standalone stores will have solar panels on the rooftop.”
This initiative is made possible through the signing of a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Malaysian-based clean energy expert, Solarvest Holdings Berhad (Solarvest).
With Solarvest’s vision to energise a regenerative world, the company engages across the clean energy value chain encompassing the development, financing, engineering, construction, operation, and maintenance of solar PV assets.
It also embarked on a strategic roadmap to venture into new sustainable solutions across the clean energy ecosystem, such as energy storage systems (ESS), renewable energy certificates (REC), green hydrogen, and green data centres.
Solarvest will work closely with Decathlon Malaysia with the supply of renewable energy installation at the future standalone stores, Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA or CGPP in Malaysia) and Renewable energy certificates (I-REC or TIGRs) which we require to achieve the 100% renewable energy goal by 2026 and achieve a key milestone in Decathlon Malaysia’s transition plan.
CGPP (Corporate Green Power Programme) is a programme that uses VPPA to allow corporate consumers to virtually purchase renewable energy from clean energy developers. This is one of the great options for companies who want to achieve 100% renewable electricity without having to install solar PV systems on their own property.
Gupta continues: “In Decathlon Malaysia, our real estate sustainability strategy is built on the concept of Reduce – Replace – Rebuild, through 5 strategic pillars:
1. Energy Management – to reduce wastage and improve energy efficiency by investing in controls technology and behavior change. For our latest store, Decathlon Gurney Paragon, we installed schedulable & dimmable LED lights which yielded 28% savings in lighting consumption.
2. Green Building – to reduce our carbon footprint in all new stores, where all our new stores are EDGE Certified, a green building certification offered by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). EDGE certified buildings use 20% less energy, water and building materials to construct and operate.
3. Renewable energy – to replace carbon intensive energy to less carbon intensive energy. 4. Green Mobility – to assist in rebuilding the transportation sector by providing EV charging points for electric vehicles.
5. Biodiversity – to rebuild the natural habitat inside the city.”
