Our Team Members love opening new stores - it gives them a blank canvas to try out all of their cool ideas. At our new SouthGlenn store in Colorado, you can plug in your electric car, park your dog at its own safe place outside, sip some on-tap kombucha, shop from more than 1,200 local products and 1,500 private label products, get your wild-caught salmon filleted and seasoned for free while strolling the largest prepared foods section in Colorado. Pretty cool, huh? But that's not all.Green building is a top priority for us and with SouthGlenn, we were very pleased to contribute to the redevelopment of an existing center to bring commerce back into the neighborhood without sacrificing any green space. With energy efficient systems and a healthy indoor space, our new store earned a "Green Globe" award. Green Globes opens in a new tab® is an online rating and on-site assessment system for eco-friendly design and operating functions that's a good fit with our vision of sustainability.
While shopping the store and cruising the back hallways, you'll see high efficiency refrigerators, walk-ins and coolers that maximize energy usage as well as conscious lighting choices like solar tracking skylights. By installing 40 skylights, we are able to track the sun's position in the sky to maximize the amount of daylight harvesting that takes place and cut back on lighting needs around the store. We are really excited that 80% of our retail space is naturally lit from daylight penetration!In terms of energy, we have reduced our consumption by 9% or 200,000 kilowatt-hours of electric energy when compared to a typical food sales establishment of similar size. We made it happen through:
Heat reclaimed from refrigerated cases, which reduced electric energy consumption by 100 gallons per hour, equaling 110,000 kilowatt-hours of electric energy saved
Many closed door cases to increase refrigeration efficiency and night curtains on open cases
High efficiency ECM fan motors in the cases and Walk-ins; variable speed condenser fan control; oversized condensers and no CFC refrigeration
Computer controls interconnected with lighting, refrigeration and HVAC for energy management
Efficient lighting at only 1.2 watts per square foot which reduced electric power demand by 17.4 kilowatts below standard. This also reduces the annual electric energy use by approximately 89,000 kilowatt hours!
Solar tracking skylights
LED lighting in all door cases
The use of durable and long-lasting materials such as concrete and tile also ensure that we were mindful of our environment in our purchasing decisions. Other sustainable materials used include: skyblend, MDF, aluminum, reclaimed barnwood, steel and 3-form. In all restrooms, high-speed hand dryers were installed to eliminate waste from paper towels and reduce energy consumption by up to 80%. Automatic water faucets ensure that water turns off as soon as it is no longer needed, and all of the urinals are waterless also, saving thousands of gallons of water every month.
Other sustainable initiatives adopted by SouthGlenn include supporting local producers to reduce "food miles" by offering over 1,200 locally-made products, stocking an extensive bulk aisle to reduce packing and increase value, and conserving resources with an extensive recycling and composting center. Outside of the store, multiple bike racks welcome riders, while four car plug-ins at the front of the store celebrate those who drive electric cars. If you live in the area, we hope you'll check out the new store and see how cool it is, or check it out online opens in a new tab and let us know what you think.Lauren Evans started with Whole Foods Market six years ago in the Prepared Foods department at the Sixth Street store in Austin. She helped open our Austin Lamar store and then moved to Colorado to open Tamarac and Belmar as a Prepared Foods supervisor. Lauren started her marketing stint at the Pearl Street store in Boulder, later transitioning into a regional role as an Associate Marketing Coordinator.
