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2011 GreenChill Award:
SUPERVALU was proud to receive the EPA’s Superior Goal Achievement Award for its success in reducing refrigerant emissions across the company in 2010. Read more about this accomplishment HERE
At SUPERVALU, we are committed to sustainable operations and will continually work to use resources more efficiently, reduce waste, offer solutions to our customers and build a culture of green in our stores and offices.
- To reduce carbon emissions by 10 percent by the end of 2012 (from 2007 baseline levels).
- To reduce our landfill waste by 50 percent by 2012.
- To build a "green" culture with SUPERVALU associates through education, communication and engagement.
- To provide "green" products and services to our customers that supports them in meeting their personal environmental goals.
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Through a partnership with World Wildlife Fund (WWF), SUPERVALU announced plans in September 2010 to cut its absolute emissions of greenhouse gases by 10 percent by the end of 2012, with a baseline year of 2007. The partnership made SUPERVALU the first retailer to join WWF’s “Climate Savers” program. CLICK TO ENLARGE
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SUPERVALU’s commitment to waste reduction was significantly accelerated in Fiscal Year 2011. The company added a variety of waste reduction and recycling programs to help reduce the amount of waste our business contributes to the nation’s landfills. Putting our stores and offices on a path to zero waste not only benefits the environment, it also creates opportunities to lower waste expenses. Achieving expense reductions in turn lowers our cost structure creating value for our customers in the form of lower prices.
Ultimately, SUPERVALU hopes to continue expanding its recycling programs throughout the country, including identifying and taking advantage of emerging material recycling markets not yet being used. Expanding programs like organic diversion and composting will be a top priority in fiscal year 2012.
SUPERVALU becomes first retail grocer in U.S. to announce Zero Waste Stores
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Each year, SUPERVALU invests substantial financial capital into energy conservation projects, with the overall strategy of identifying solutions that can be efficiently applied across multiple stores in each regional banner. In fiscal year 2011, many of these energy conservation projects focused on relighting our stores with more efficient LED and low-wattage lighting technology. Additional projects focused on installing more efficient lighting in our refrigeration cases and utilizing proven energy saving technology. Of note, SUPERVALU was awarded the San Diego Gas & Electric Energy Champion Award in the retail category for its energy saving efforts and installations in calendar year 2010.
Water consumption is another growing concern for businesses, local governments, and communities across the U.S. As an environmental steward, SUPERVALU is planning efforts in fiscal year 2012 to reduce overall water consumption by analyzing investments in new technology and increasing associate awareness on water conservation.
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SUPERVALU is committed to the important issue of seafood sustainability. SUPERVALU began a partnership with World Wildlife Fund – a leading global conservation organization - in early 2010 to assess our seafood supply and develop ways to improve the sustainability of our seafood buying practices and standards. The results of this analysis showed more than 40% of the top 20 wild-caught seafood species sold by SUPERVALU are already certified by the Marine Stewardship Council or in full assessment.
To further expand this commitment, SUPERVALU announced its commitment to source 100 percent of its top-twenty wild-caught seafood products from sustainable fisheries or those on a clear pathway to sustainability by 2015. Specifically, these products will be certified from Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) fisheries, in full assessment, or involved in a Fishery Improvement Project with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) by 2015.
Additionally, SUPERVALU will continue to support positive change on this issue by working with the Food Marketing Institute’s Sustainable Seafood Working Group and WWF’s Aquaculture Dialogues, while also supporting Fishery Improvement Projects in cooperation with WWF, including Indonesian yellow-fin tuna fisheries.
SUPERVALU to Source Top Seafood From Sustainable Fisheries by 2015
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SUPERVALU’s family of stores and pharmacies strive each day to help customers reach their health and wellness goals. During the past year, SUPERVALU expanded its innovative nutrition-labeling program, nutrition iQ, while implementing several disease management initiatives to assist customers affected by diabetes, celiac disease and other chronic conditions.
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In 2009, SUPERVALU launched a goal to double the number of Save-a-Lot stores by 2015, making the hard discount format available to new communities across the entire nation. With approximately 95% of Save-A-Lot stores opening in existing buildings, SUPERVALU actively works to revitalize and restore existing developments, allow the new stores to utilize fewer new materials and ultimately extending the life of a structure. This approach also eliminates the need for new transportation routes and infrastructure and allows the projects to utilize current building structures and fixtures to the greatest extent possible.
In addition, rethinking our refrigeration strategy has been a top priority during this expansion. In an effort to minimize the inherent environmental impact of adding new stores, SUPERVALU’s engineering team redesigned the refrigeration system to incorporate the use of an alternate refrigerant. Not only does this offer a 50% reduction in potential emissions, it also leads to a smaller overall refrigerant charge and lowers overall cost.
Additionally, Save-A-Lot is continually making improvements to increase efficiencies during the construction phase. Additional examples include:
- Efficient lighting replacements and lighting reduction in all corporate stores. This has reduced the numbers of fixtures while also cutting electricity consumption.
- Night covers are now standard on all open refrigeration cases.
- Coolers are efficiently lined up in order to share refrigeration panels
- Elimination of exterior department signs (produce, dairy, meat, frozen) to a more all-encompassing ‘food store’ sign.
- Utilizing a base-up shelving model, allowing less shelving to be used than in standard grocery stores while extending the lifecycle of the pallet and shipping packages.
- Offering one-size products allows for more efficient shipping and merchandising.
- SAL was able to reuse equipment from 6 closed stores for 6 new locations, supplementing any needed additional equipment from the reconditioned market place.
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Expanding employee awareness and creating desire for change are the key ingredients to the success of any sustainability program. In order to catalyze change, SUPERVALU is charged with making sustainability meaningful to shareholders, executive leadership, board of directors, and over 140,000 associates. As sustainability becomes more relevant to all aspects of business operations, SUPERVALU has recognized this shift by expanding the team responsible for executing our sustainability strategy. Moreover, this team has worked diligently to educate our stores on the ways in which SUPERVALU can become more environmentally conscious while also reducing waste from our operations.
As SUPERVALU moves toward creating higher efficiencies and lowering expenses through waste elimination in all its forms, opportunities arise. Food banks will continue to benefit from fresh food rescue; farmers will take advantage of low cost animal feed diversion and composting operations; landfills will become less burdened with waste; new technology and programs will reduce store energy consumption and power bills; packaging will be more efficiently designed with industrial and biological cycle reuse in mind; and economies of scale will make healthier food more accessible to lower income customers.
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SUPERVALU promotes the creation of “green teams” throughout its office and retail locations. In fiscal year 2011, volunteer green teams were responsible for organizing various events such as Earth Day activities and associate recycling drives. Additionally, SUPERVALU’s Enterprise Environmental Steering Committee oversees a variety of activities aimed at minimizing the company’s environmental footprint.
Electronic waste accounts for a large majority of hazardous material being thrown into our nations landfills. On November 15th, 2010 - in honor of America Recycles Day - SUPERVALU associates organized an e-waste recycling drive at SUPERVALU support centers using environmentally responsible recycling vendors. In total, associates were able to recycle nearly 30,000 lbs of personal electronic waste otherwise destined for local landfills. Through green team leadership, recycling drives like this are growing in popularity and are being scheduled annually at SUPERVALU store support centers.
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SUPERVALU has consistently worked to expand our reusable bag program and offer customers an affordable and environmentally conscious solution as an alternative to traditional paper or plastic bags. This effort culminated with the recent launch of a bagless store pilot project at two California Albertsons locations.
SUPERVALU Reusable Bag Program objectives:
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Fiscal Year 2011 Progress Report:
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