SUPERVALU INC., through a partnership with World Wildlife Fund (WWF), plans to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases by 10% by the end of 2012 with a baseline year of 2007.
SUPERVALU’s initiative is comparable in scope to eliminating the electricity use of more than 352,000 average U.S. homes for one year. This partnership makes SUPERVALU not only the first traditional grocer, but also the first major retailer to join WWF’s Climate Savers program, a reflection on the company’s commitment to the environment.
“We hope others in the industry follow SUPERVALU’s leadership to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jason Clay, senior vice president of markets at WWF. “SUPERVALU understands the value of increasing efficiency to save costs and reduce their climate impact. This is a strong, absolute commitment, and we look forward to working with SUPERVALU to achieve it.”
In order to accomplish its target reduction, SUPERVALU has identified several key areas of focus including a few visible initiatives such as:
-Conversion of store lighting from traditional fluorescent lamps to a more efficient, LED-based lighting design
-Improved refrigeration efficiencies through the installation of night curtains that pull down over open refrigerated cases and better refrigeration controls on all refrigerated cases
-Integrated fleet transportation plan that will improve efficiencies by reducing diesel fuel consumption, improving truck idle times through use of on-board technology and reducing trailer refrigeration run time during loading and unloading of trailers.
SUPERVALU is one of 25 participants in WWF’s Climate Savers program, joining the likes of Hewlett Packard, Nike, The Coca-Cola Co., IBM, and Johnson & Johnson. Collectively, Climate Savers partners plans to reduce emissions by an estimated 50 million tons by the end of 2010, an amount equivalent to the carbon emissions of 8.7 million passenger vehicles or the carbon sequestered by 9.7 million acres of pine forests.
“As one of the largest companies in the U.S. grocery channel, SUPERVALU is committed to preserving and protecting the environment,” said Andrew Herring, SUPERVALU executive vice president, retail market development. “The Climate Savers partnership is another example of our ongoing commitment to use energy more efficiently and operate more sustainably.”
SUPERVALU’s commitment to the environment is not a new initiative. In fact, this week the company has received recognition from two national organizations for its ongoing commitment to environmental stewardship.
– The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded SUPERVALU with its EPA GreenChill’s Distinguished Partner Award, its “Best of the Best” (Certified Store) Award for SUPERVALU’S new Chestnut Hill Star Market (Chestnut Hill, MA) and the Environmental Achievement Award for achievement of the company’s annual environmental goals. The awards were announced this week.
-Received recognition from the Carbon Disclosure Project’s (CDP) and featured on the “Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index” which tracks constituent companies within the S&P 500 Index that have displayed the most professional approach to corporate governance in respect to climate change disclosure practices. The CDP represents 534 institutional investors with $64 trillion in assets under management. The listing was announced on Tuesday.