We’ve done it! Super Heero has launched Europe’s first crowdlending platform dedicated to the realization of energy efficiency projects in supermarkets based on stakeholder and community engagement (www.super-heero.com). With Super Heero, shoppers, store staff and citizens at large can participate in making the stores they shop at and the brands they are loyal to more sustainable by investing in EE projects via a crowdlending platform. Triple win. Brands and stores engage their clientele, unlock financing and gain access to cutting-edge technologies and turnkey assistance. Crowdvestors earn an interest rate, receive store-specific rewards such as points or coupons, learn about EE and directly participate in the energy transition. Municipalities gain sustainable actions on the territory, an increased sense of community and positive contributions to social impacts.
Stepping back to what motivated the project, Super-Heero has been funded within Horizon 2020 under the LIFE program under call topic LC-SC3-E-9-2018-2019 “Innovative financing for energy efficiency investments” which has been managed by CINEA. Over its three-year duration (2020-2023), a 10-partner consortium developed and validated an innovative financing model for energy efficiency interventions based on customer engagement and targeting supermarkets in both Italy and Spain. Supermarkets were a deliberate targeted market segment because their energy expenses are high, they have customer loyalty programs, they are nodes of the social fabric in communities, interventions can be scalable at brand level and there is the opportunity to facilitate interactions toward sustainability between brands and franchise owners.
Using the Super Heero approach, common barriers to the realization of energy efficiency interventions are reduced. Most commonly these include lack of time, knowledge or financing to get the job. With Super Heero, a five step process that is customizable to any ownership structure (brand, franchise or co-owned), supermarket typology (urban boutique, periphery box, or outer ring supercenter) and store state of efficiency (new, semi-modern, old) gets the job done. Any location that isn’t using modern technologies be it LED, PV, voltage control, state of the art refrigeration systems or other simple measures, there is no reason not to take action and start saving energy, costs and carbon.
The secret of Super-Heero is quite simple. Every energy efficiency project has a return of investment. If part of that benefit can be shared with store clientele, staff and citizens at large, a new value proposition is unlocked on top of the energy savings. That value proposition includes brand loyalty, educating people about energy efficiency, and communicate store and brand values in a new way. In doing so, Super-Heero transforms energy efficiency projects into an experience. The marketing and advertising, in-store promotion, bonuses and rewards and inauguration ceremonies are fun, directly touch people and provide stores and brands with a direct tool to show they are part of the energy transition solution.
Super-Heero also thinks bigger. It isn’t only supermarkets that can benefit from the approach and methodology. The project has identified a set of other sectors where Super Heero will point next. These include, retailers, shopping centers, restaurants, hotels, sport associations, schools and other buildings where communities are present. There is a lot of work to do, a lot of value to unlock and a lot of sustainability interventions to accelerate, motivate and realize using Super Heero.
