Geopolitical tensions clearly demonstrate that the cost of energy is a variable that can never be taken for granted. On 20 March, the International Energy Agency (IEA) confirmed that the conflict in the Middle East has caused the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market: an imbalance that cannot be restored in the short term. And energy determines everything, from people's daily actions to business processes.

A concrete example, and one very close to everyday experience, is retail. Every point of sale is, in fact, a complex system that must guarantee efficiency and high service standards day after day. It does so against a backdrop of significant energy consumption for lighting, refrigeration and air conditioning. Knowing how to plan and manage these consumptions strategically makes a difference, because it makes the company less vulnerable to price fluctuations: this is where sustainability proves advantageous in economic as well as environmental terms. We tell this story in the In Pratica video feature, with the case of Bennet.

Bennet's measures to reduce energy consumption at its points of sale

According to the latest Italian Statistical Yearbook from the National Institute of Statistics (Istat), which reports 2023 data, Italian households choose supermarkets and hypermarkets for 65.2 per cent of their food purchases; traditional shops (15.5 per cent) and discount stores (13.6 per cent) follow. Across the Peninsula there are 17,440 supermarkets, 2,114 department stores and 946 hypermarkets: the first category alone employs more than 263,000 people. Each of these points of sale remains open for many hours a day, often seven days a week. Even when the shutters are down and the lights go off, refrigerated counters and cold rooms work 24 hours a day to maintain the cold chain, and air-conditioning units keep temperatures stable.

Bennet, a retail brand with 49 points of sale across Lombardia, Piemonte and Liguria, has addressed the energy issue with a progressive, multi-front approach. The first front is store efficiency, through the replacement of traditional lighting with LED systems and the adoption of lower-consumption food refrigeration systems. These measures have enabled the company to participate in the Transizione 5.0 plan set out in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), which provides tax incentives for broader energy investments. To access the incentives, the technologies adopted must achieve an overall reduction in consumption of at least 5 per cent.

Self-producing clean energy to protect against price fluctuations

The self-production of renewable energy is also part of this strategy. It has now been fifteen years since Bennet installed its first photovoltaic panels back in 2011. This gave rise to a broader project, called Energia Green, which encompasses energy management as a whole. In recent years the journey has accelerated: in 2023 five new systems were installed with a combined capacity of approximately 1.4 megawatts, in 2024 a further seven were added, and in 2025 another eight. Today, 24 Bennet points of sale are equipped with photovoltaic panels: by the end of 2025 the total installed capacity had reached 7.7 megawatts, yielding an annual output of approximately 5,929 MWh.

Meeting part of the supermarkets' energy needs through clean energy self-produced locally means consuming fewer fossil fuels and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But it also means making costs more predictable: a form of protection that strengthens the company's resilience. "The path we have embarked on in energy is a long-term industrial choice, based on concrete and measurable actions that allow us to significantly reduce the consumption and environmental impact of our operations," Adriano De Zordi, Chief Executive Officer of Bennet, tells LifeGate. "Investing in efficiency and self-production from renewable sources means operating responsibly today while, at the same time, preparing ourselves for developments in the European regulatory framework, making our company stronger and more resilient in the face of future challenges."