By Phumlani Dyini, Group Chief ESG Officer, The SPAR Group.
Over the past couple of years, SPAR distribution centres have been transitioning the energy-mix to a hybrid configuration — grid power backed by rooftop solar. The change was invisible to our independent retailers. But it was the kind of pragmatic business decision that, replicated across our network, quietly rewrote what sustainability means for a wholesale and retail business operating in the South African economic context.
That context matters enormously. South Africans have watched electricity costs rise significantly over the last eleven years. Grocery prices have followed, and the stretch every household must make with every rand has grown tighter. For a business like SPAR, any environmental commitment that increases the price of a litre of milk is not a sustainability strategy — it is a transfer of cost from the balance sheet to the kitchen table. That is not a trade-off we are willing to make.
The challenge we have set ourselves is more demanding than simply reducing our carbon footprint. It is to design environmental responsibility so that it reinforces, rather than undermines, the affordability outcomes our customers depend on.
The structural advantage of getting energy right
Energy is the most immediate case. The installed cost of large commercial solar has been reducing over the years. Eskom tariffs have moved in the opposite direction. The business case is now unambiguous: capital investment in renewable energy generates a return in operational cost savings that eventually reaches the supply chain, and through it, the shelf.
Beyond generation, the efficiency of what we do with energy matters as much as the source. Investments in efficiencies across our business reduce the energy intensity of getting product from farm to store. These are not headline-grabbing initiatives. They are the structural foundations that determine whether sustainability is a net cost or a net benefit over time.
What Sustainable supply chains actually looks like in our model
Here it is worth being precise about what SPAR is and is not. We are not a corporate retail chain with company-owned stores where a head office directive on packaging or food waste can be implemented overnight. We are a wholesale-led, voluntary-trading model. Our independent retailers choose to trade under our brand and through our supply chain, but they run their own businesses. Sustainability, in our model, does not flow down a command structure. It travels through influence, business value-add, and practical support.
This distinction matters because it changes both the challenge and the opportunity. The challenge: we cannot enforce environmental standards the way a vertically integrated competitor can. The opportunity: entrepreneurial, community-embedded businesses, each motivated to manage costs and serve their local customers, represent an enormous surface area for sustainability to take root in ways that central-office mandates rarely achieve.
The most credible expression of this model in action is what has happened in agriculture. In 2016, SPAR established the Supplier Development Hub, the mode model, addresses systemic barriers such as limited market access, insufficient technical capabilities, and restricted access to finance. By providing structured support, promoting sustainable farming practices, and creating reliable routes to market, the Rural Hub empowers emerging farmers to become active participants in the formal The motivation was partly commercial — shortening supply routes, reducing logistics costs, bringing fresh produce to market faster.
But there is a dimension to this that sits beyond logistics efficiency. When a smallholder farmer transitions from subsistence production to a commercially viable operation supplying SPAR, the social and environmental outcomes are linked. Sustainable farming practices are transferred to the farmer as part of the program. Soil health, water-use efficiency and responsible use of inputs are not optional extras — they are what make the economics work over the long term. In this sense, the Rural Hub is not a corporate social responsibility programme bolted onto a commercial supply chain. It is what a sustainable supply chain looks like when it is designed from the ground up in a South African context.
Water and the things consumers can see
Energy and agriculture are, in some respects, the easier part of the sustainability story to tell — the numbers are legible and the commercial logic is clear. Two other areas matter enormously but receive less attention.
Water is a material risk across our operational footprint, particularly as drought cycles have become more frequent and municipal infrastructure is ageing and more strained. SPAR distribution centres are significant water users — in cleaning operations, refrigeration cooling systems and staff facilities. Investments in water recycling, leak detection and consumption monitoring at our DCs are not optional. They are a buffer against operational disruption in a resource-constrained environment.
Packaging is the sustainability issue most visible to consumers. Our independent retailers make their own packaging decisions, and consumer preferences vary significantly across income levels and geographies. Our approach has been to work on the upstream side — in what we source and how we specify it — rather than to impose requirements that would disadvantage smaller stores competing on price. The direction of travel is clear, we are reviewing our metrics to be clearer than they currently are in our public reporting.
The future of sustainable wholesale and retail, therefore, lies not in asking consumers to pay more for environmentally responsible products and services, but in building systems designed to deliver outcomes that benefit people and the world we all live in.
National Environment Month offers an opportune moment for us all to reflect on our collective responsibility to build a better world. It also serves as a reminder that environmental stewardship and economic well-being need not be competing priorities
