Reducing stores’ environmental impact
Reducing stores’ environmental impact
Our regional store engineering departments are constantly seeking ways to minimize the environmental impact of our stores. We are regularly reviewing and evaluating new energy efficient, environmentally favourable technology, and once the technology proves to be energy efficient and cost-effective in our pilots, it is implemented in additional facilities. Some of the many initiatives that have already been implemented across our regional business units include:
- Replacing the stores' lighting with energy efficient T5 fluorescent lamps. Switching to T5 lamps offers a number of benefits, including less energy use, longer service life and lighting that resemble natural light.
- Replacing open multi-deck freezers and coolers with closed door units that significantly reduce the volume of air that escapes. Open freezers and coolers permit cold air to escape into the building, increasing the demand on the refrigeration system and the burden on the heating systems to maintain a comfortable store climate for our customers and employees. The use of closed door units has resulted in energy savings of approximately 50% per freezer/cooler.
- Re-commissioning stores' refrigeration systems to ensure they are working at optimum efficiency. Over time, a system's settings deviate from their original set points. Re-commissioning is a process of restoring the equipment to the manufacturer's original set points. This reduces equipment downtime, maintenance expenditures, energy consumption and refrigerant leak risks. The actual savings achieved by re-commissioning varies from store to store.
- Installing heat reclaim systems that allow us to use refrigeration generated waste heat to warm other areas of the stores.
- Installing motion-activated lighting in various areas of our stores, which can significantly reduce energy consumption, particularly in low traffic areas.
- Using LED lighting in a wide variety of applications in both the interior and exterior of our stores, including frozen and refrigerated food display cases, track lighting in produce departments, exterior store signage and accent lights. LED lighting is up to 90% more energy-efficient than conventional lighting, generates less heat and has a much longer lifespan than conventional light sources. Our engineering departments are continuously reviewing opportunities to expand the use of LED lighting within our retail store network.
In addition to these initiatives, the following is an overview of some of the many region-specific initiatives that are also being undertaken to reduce our stores' environmental impact and operating costs.
