Retail Carbon Emissions: How 5 Retailers Measure & Cut Them

Your retail carbon emissions sit in a high volume of diverse products, both upstream and downstream in your value chain, depending on your product mis. Supplier data is scattered or missing. Your store data sits in utility bill PDFs and refrigerant contractor reports. Meanwhile, Australia's mandatory climate reporting rules already cover the largest retail companies.

These five retailers and consumer brands faced the same context. Each one turned bills, contractor records and business data into a baseline in weeks, found the few sources that drove its footprint, and modelled what to change.

The five at a glance

Which example matches your situation?

• Hundreds of stores and utility bills still entered by hand → FairPrice Group
• Chillers, freezers or air conditioning running on older refrigerants → FairPrice Group and MUI Group
• A take-back or recycling programme with no climate figure → Winning Group
• Products that burn fuel or use energy after the sale → Barbeques Galore and Winning Group
• A supply chain that leans on air freight → The Giving Movement

How FairPrice Group replaced months of manual work with store-level tracking

Result: months of manual measurement replaced by automated tracking of refrigerant and electricity emissions for every store, across hundreds of locations.

Business outcome: FairPrice Group now has a reliable, multi-year measurement base to track its commitment to halve Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030. Its operations team compares energy intensity across store formats to see where efficiency spending will return the most, and measurement is moving from annual to half-yearly.

FairPrice Group is Singapore's largest retailer, with supermarkets, convenience outlets, food courts and pharmacies serving a million customers a day.

• The problem: staff typed totals from individual utility bills into spreadsheets, and each round took months. Refrigerant records sat with several maintenance contractors, each with its own format.
• What Terrascope did: built its Bill & Invoice Extractor with FairPrice Group to read thousands of utility bill PDFs and calculate electricity emissions for each store. The platform mapped every refrigerant top-up to its store and applied gas-specific emission factors in a single corporate carbon footprint. It then broke each year's change into refrigerant conversions, maintenance improvements, and store openings and closures.
• What it found: refrigerant gases made up most of Scope 1, the emissions a company produces directly. Electricity made up roughly half of Scope 1 and 2 combined. The older R404A refrigerant has a global warming potential (GWP) nearly 4,000 times that of carbon dioxide; the R744 (carbon dioxide) systems going into new and renovated stores have a GWP of 1.
• Quality check: the automated extraction is repeatable and auditable, and the multi-year dataset builds on FairPrice Group's 2023 verified baseline.

“Speed matters, and so does confidence in the numbers. We now trust the numbers enough to act on them, and the store-level detail tells us exactly where action will deliver the biggest reduction.”
FairPrice Group

Read the FairPrice Group case study

How Winning Group put a number on its recycling programme

Result: about 8,200 tCO₂e avoided by its free removal and recycling programme, more than Winning Group's Scope 1 and 2 emissions in FY2024.

Business outcome: Winning Group started free removal and recycling in 2005 to set its Appliances Online business apart. It now has a data-backed figure for the programme's climate impact to share with internal teams and external partners, and a footprint that lays the foundation for its reporting as a Group 1 entity under Australia's sustainability reporting standards.

Winning Group is a family-owned Australian retailer of appliances, furniture and home products, behind brands such as Appliances Online and Winning Appliances.

• The problem: the programme had recycled more than 80,000 tonnes of electronics and appliances, but Winning Group had no way to quantify its climate benefit. Key sustainability data still sat in spreadsheets.
• What Terrascope did: measured a full corporate carbon footprint for FY21 to FY25. It then calculated the programme's avoided emissions from two levers: better waste treatment, such as refrigerant degassing, and recycled steel and cardboard replacing new material.
• What it found: metals and recovered refrigerants contributed the most avoided emissions. Recovered refrigerants saved the most per kilogram and made up 29% of the total. The largest sources in the footprint were the electricity customers use to run their appliances and the sourcing of those appliances from suppliers.

“The Terrascope team also supported us in calculating avoided emissions which was a new concept to us.”
Alice Kuepper, Head of Sustainability and Industry Impact, Winning Group

Read the Winning Group case study

How Barbeques Galore traced its footprint to the barbecues it sells

Result: Scope 3 made up 99% of the footprint, and simulations found ways to cut product-use emissions by 10% and packaging emissions by 16% to 61%.

Business outcome: Barbeques Galore aims to rework its product and marketing mix so the lower-emission barbecue is the easy choice for customers, and to diversify and expand its revenue streams, with emissions data to back its claims. It is also preparing for Australia's mandatory climate disclosures years before they apply to it.

Barbeques Galore is Australia's leading retailer of barbecues and backyard products, with 90 stores.

• The problem: Barbeques Galore had cut polystyrene from its packaging and moved stores to LED lighting, but had no reliable way to measure what those changes achieved.
• What Terrascope did: measured its Scope 1, 2 and 3 corporate carbon footprint, then worked with its team to calculate the emissions from customers using each barbecue and fuel type. Simulations tested reduction options.
• What it found: purchased goods and product use led. A pellet barbecue averages 0.058 kg CO₂e per use, 96% less than gas models. Moving 10% of gas barbecue sales to pellet grills running on renewable or sustainably sourced fuel could cut use emissions by 10%. Replacing styrofoam with recycled alternatives could cut packaging emissions by 16% to 61%.

“Sustainability continues to increase in importance to our customers, our team, and the wider community. As we chart a pathway toward meeting these expectations, Terrascope delivers real numbers and actionable information.”
Angus McDonald, CEO of Barbeques Galore

Read the Barbeques Galore case study · Watch the Barbeques Galore CEO video

How MUI Group found a refrigerant swap that could cut costs

Result: a Scope 1, 2 and 3 baseline and first decarbonisation plan in four weeks, including a simulated refrigerant swap with a 56% potential reduction in refrigerant operating costs.

Business outcome: MUI Group can now plan emission cuts and operating savings together: the same swap could reduce the food business's total emissions by 5–10%. Terrascope processed its data five times faster than manual methods, which freed its executive and sustainability teams for climate strategy.

MUI Group is a Malaysian investment holding company, listed on Bursa Malaysia, with retail, hotel, food and confectionery, and property businesses in nine countries.

• The problem: MUI Group had never measured its emissions, and its businesses span three continents, nine countries and several industries.
• What Terrascope did: built a corporate carbon footprint for 2021 to 2023 across key businesses, ran hotspot analytics and simulated reduction options.
• What it found: in the food business, Scope 3 made up 82% of FY2022 emissions, and 10 activities produced 92% of the total. Most were chocolate and confectionery ingredients such as cocoa powder, whey powder and cocoa butter substitute. A refrigerant used in the chillers and air conditioners at its manufacturing sites was the fourth-largest source.

“Terrascope transformed our unstructured business and supplier data into actionable emissions insights in just four weeks.”
Andrew Khoo, Executive Chairman and CEO, MUI Group

Read the MUI Group case study

The Giving Movement found its freight hotspot in two weeks

Result: a full baseline and first decarbonisation plan in two weeks, and a simulated shift from air to sea and land freight that could cut inbound freight emissions by 18.7% while still meeting customer demand.

Business outcome: The Giving Movement now has a repeatable way to measure emissions that supports its decisions and the credibility of its reporting. It also used the platform to weigh up locations for a new warehouse that would lower emissions and still deliver on time.

The Giving Movement is a Dubai-based sustainable fashion brand with over 200 suppliers across two continents.

• The problem: The Giving Movement had switched to biodegradable packaging but did not know which part of its supply chain to tackle next.
• What Terrascope did: processed 1,200 lines of business activity data into a full corporate carbon footprint in two weeks, found the hotspots and simulated decarbonisation options.
• What it found: three categories made up 87% of Scope 3: customers washing the clothes (35%), purchased goods (33%) and inbound freight (27%). Air courier made up 72% of freight emissions but carried only 4% of the volume. Sea freight carried 95% of the volume for 26% of the emissions.

“Terrascope helped us make significant strides in our decarbonisation journey, by identifying the most impactful actions for reducing emissions across our supply chain.”
Alastair Sherriffs, Chief Marketing Officer, The Giving Movement

Read The Giving Movement case study

Measure your stores and products in weeks

Terrascope pairs the platform with climate and carbon experts who work with your team from the first utility bill to targets and assurance.

• Retail solutions: Scope 3, supplier data and product footprints for retailers and consumer brands
• Corporate Carbon Footprint: Scope 1, 2 and 3 in one inventory, down to store level
• Decarbonise with AI: model a reduction, such as a refrigerant swap or a freight shift, before you spend
• ROI calculator: estimate the return for your own company

Further reading

• Decarbonising for retailers 101
• Engaging suppliers on Scope 3 reductions: best practices and tips
• Prove the value of your circular economy programmes
• Australia's climate disclosure rules: what you need to know
• UK climate disclosure rules: what you need to know

FAQs

Sources: Terrascope case studies for FairPrice Group, Winning Group, Barbeques Galore (written case study and CEO video), MUI Group and The Giving Movement (terrascope.com/casestudies, accessed 20 October 2026). MUI Group, Barbeques Galore and The Giving Movement reduction figures are modelled potential from platform simulations, per the case studies.