The Thistles Centre

The Thistles Centre houses 100 shops in the centre of Stirling, and is the area of highest footfall in Stirling. As such, it presents a unique opportunity to bring the low carbon message to a large audience, as well as support carbon reduction on site.

GCNS approached the Thistles Management team in December 2008, through an interested retailer. The Thistles had already reduced energy usage by 10% over four years and was recycling 58% of waste collected from all of the shops. Following an enthusiastic discussion, the Thistles Management team agreed to help GCNS meet the retailers where GCNS would then be able to engage and support retailers to start Carbon Cutter Plans amongst their staff. The management team also agreed to work with GCNS in order to manage their own infrastructure more efficiently.

Visibility – supporting the low carbon message

By August 2009, 19 shops were on board with Carbon Cutter Plans and the Centre itself was (and still is) displaying four wall banners which declare the Centre and its partners (GCNS and Stirling Council) are "Reducing Stirling's carbon footprint…step by step" The Centre also has had several sets of eye catching green footprints created and placed on the floor throughout the mall.

The Thistles is on the verge of installing several recycling bins within the mall for customer use, and expects to be one of the first malls in Scotland to do this. Even though all of the waste currently collected in the mall areas is recycled as much as it can be, this activity is taking place to emphasise the mall’s commitment to green activities and its desire that users do their bit by recycling their rubbish.

Coming next...

The belief that businesses are not taking action on carbon is one of the main behavioral barriers stopping consumers acting on their own footprint. To combat this, all participating retailers will put a GCNS action poster / sticker in their windows to increase the visibility of their carbon action.

Infrastructure

Each shop has its own heating/cooling and electricity, but the centre itself also has energy bills of almost £500,000 per year. GCNS has supported the centre management team in several ways to reduce this expenditure and the consequent carbon emissions:

• GCNS inspected all areas of the mall one evening with a security guard, noting areas where efficiencies could be made. Lighting was a key find. Although the mall had already started turning off lights in the parking areas, there were a number of other areas with lights left on. These were noted and became part of the security guard checklist of action in the evening. The result? Early indications suggest a saving of up to 40% on the electricity bill in one half of the mall
• GCNS improved levels of overall waste recycled by retailers by increasing their awareness, as a group, of what waste can & should be sorted for recycling purposes within the mall. This activity highlighted an issue in the waste process – the lack of the right disposal bags - which the group working together, and encouraged by GCNS, was able to overcome
• GCNS's support helped the mall get swift access to a Carbon Trust Energy Options Assessment Survey which identified several more areas for potential savings. The Centre Management Team is currently investigating these.

GCNS will continue to work with the Thistles Centre to support the remaining shops to come on board with Carbon Cutter Plans and infrastructure changes of their own.