Ensuring compliance for growth and renovation ambitions

Related theme: HSE Compliance & Business Continuity

Supermarket chain Lidl operates locations across Belgium and is in the process of updating older supermarkets and developing new sites. With evolving and increasing HSE legislation, companies such as Lidl are finding it harder to ensure compliance. TAUW was contracted to carry out an extensive assessment to identify the necessary measures and advise on business continuity.  

Challenge

The scale of Lidl’s business operations, range of existing locations and expansion plans across Belgium made this a complex assignment. Lidl has locations in all three of Belgium’s legislative regions which meant taking into account regional as well as national and European legislation. The scope of this project also included sustainability and climate adaptive measures to ensure business continuity.

Solution

Because of the extent of the work, range of activities and duration of the project, Lidl and TAUW decided to work with a framework agreement for environmental permits to regulate existing and new sites and a due diligence framework contract for a range of services such as archaeological studies, soil surveys, asbestos assessments and remediation, rainwater studies. TAUW subsequently carried out both the studies and groundwork.  

The framework agreement helped to foster a long-term relationship based on trust. We provided a full-service package for existing and new sites, helping to increase efficiency and reduce costs. We appointed one point of contact which allowed us to better coordinate the work. We were able to achieve faster turnaround times and provide on call services as needed.  

Impact

TAUW employs skilled professionals in all three regions. That is a decided advantage on a project of this size. Our consultancy is proactive and goes beyond simple compliance. We alert the client to pending changes in legislation and issue project-specific advice. We help our clients take informed investment decisions and we recommend measures to ensure business continuity. We included specific risk assessments for Lidl’s site in a flood-affected areas and we proposed climate adaptative measures. 

TAUW has specialists on the wide range of health and safety and environmental issues, and we are able to respond quickly because we can pool resources from our various business units.

Partnership

We were able to scale up efficiency on this project thanks to the smooth cooperation between TAUW business units and by working with a single point of contact. On this long-term project we will continue to optimise our consultancy to provide the best possible service.   
 

Yuri Vandenfonteyne, Lidl Belgium GmbH: “In an environment that is becoming increasingly complex, TAUW provides the necessary support to help us achieve our objectives.”