|
Safeway Inc. is one of the largest food and drug retailers in North America. The executive headquarters for Safeway is located in the City of Pleasanton in Northern California where it oversees (at year-end 2006) the operation of 1,761 stores in the Western, Southwestern, Rocky Mountain, Mid-West, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, as well as in western Canada. Of these 521 (30%) of the stores are located in California. Safeway has a long history of energy efficiency projects throughout their grocery and food service operations. Per square foot, supermarkets, and food service operations are the top two commercial energy use segments. Energy benchmarking of food service operations is a management tool in its infancy. In an industry that mostly views the cost of operating a piece of equipment or lighting as an unavoidable cost of doing business, Safeway Inc. has taken a forward thinking vision with respect to its energy efficiency goals. Even before energy prices were on the rise, key people within the Safeway organization initiated an innovative strategy to reduce overall energy consumption through new cost-effective building designs, process improvements and specifying energy efficient and demand side management technologies in its stores. Going back ten years, Safeway was the first to take advantage of PG&E’s Food Service Technology Center (www.pge.com/fstc) commercial equipment testing program to help it reduce energy costs in its in-store deli and bakery operations. It pioneered specifying equipment performance [e.g., energy efficiency] in its Standard Purchasing Specifications in this industry, demanding third-party test data in accordance with ASTM International Standards for food service (http://www.astm.org) to verify its suppliers’ claims. By taking advantage of the 2006-2008 California Investor Owned Utilities performance-based food service incentive program, Safeway ensures it is buying the most efficient commercial kitchen equipment (ovens, fryers, refrigerators and freezers) available in today’s market. In 2006, Safeway began a multi-year store renovation project that in the first year resulted in the installation of over 160 new energy efficient combination and rack ovens. (Based on program year 2006 IOU processed rebates.) In the California IOU store locations alone, this project will account for savings of over 89,000 therms annually, as well as 13,490,400 gallons of water saved. These food service equipment rebates are over and above the savings associated with Safeway’s 2006 supermarket operation and distribution center upgrades that account for additional measured savings of 2,406,652 kWh, 214 kW and 98,570 therms annually from California IOU energy efficiency projects. Apart from energy efficiency, Safeway has implemented a comprehensive national recycling program that is recycling nearly 500,000 tons of materials such as cardboard, plastics, compostable materials and other food waste each year. It has taken an aggressive position on reducing greenhouse gases. In January 2007 Safeway Inc. joined the California Climate Action Registry (the Registry), California's only official registry for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions reduction projects. Participation in the Registry makes Safeway the first retail grocer in the state to be an active participant in the organization and another step in the company's comprehensive GHG Emissions Reduction Program. Safeway has implemented several clean energy initiatives to reduce its carbon footprint across California and North America. The Company was a strong supporter of AB 32, California's new law to reduce carbon emissions by 25 percent by 2020. In September 2006, Safeway joined the Chicago Climate Exchange and committed to reduce its carbon footprint from the base year 2000 by 390,000 tons of carbon dioxide. It also announced the purchase of an additional 78 million kilowatt-hours of wind energy, making it one of the top ten corporate purchasers of green wind energy in California and the nation. Its 270 fuel stations in the US, Corporate Office campuses in Pleasanton and Walnut Creek, California and 15 stores in San Francisco are now powered by wind energy. Using Safeway estimates, this purchase is the equivalent of removing 85 million pounds of carbon dioxide equivalents [42,000 tons] from the environment. Through its partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency, Safeway was named a top 2005 EPA Green Power Partner. References: http://media.corporate-ir.net//media_files/irol/64/64607/ENVRPT2005Summary.pdf.
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||