Sainsburys opens new green store

Tue, 19 Aug 2008
 
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Sainsbury’s has opened the country’s first green supermarket in Dartmouth, Devon, which it says will become the model for all its new supermarkets .

The supermarket store, set to become Sainsburys flagship outlet, is built entirely from recycled materials which Sainsbury’s claim will help it to use 50 per cent less energy from the national grid and produce 40 per cent less CO2 than a normal store .

The store has been constructed from timber rather than steel and boasts boasts 38 different energy-saving measures including a biomass boiler burning wood chips from locally sourced wood to provide heating, LED lights and solar powered fans.

Rainwater will be used to clean and flush customer toilets, which will save the store over one million litres of mains water every year, and wind turbines to power its checkouts have been opened for the first time.

Sainsbury’s said the construction of the site was also carried out in an environmentally-friendly way, with 90 per cent of the building waste being recycled . The supermarket also planted 400 trees to compensate for the 200 used in the timber frame.

Furthermore, the company announced that all the lorries that make food deliveries to the store will be powered by bio-methane produced from rotting rubbish.

Commenting on the opening, Neil Sachdev, Sainsbury’s commercial director, said: "The green store is a leader in sustainable construction, it’s sensitive to its local environment, and is extremely low in energy usage."

"We’ve been keen to experiment with a number of energy-saving measures here, from sun pipes which provide amazing natural light to using a timber frame rather than steel, which consumes less energy in its production, but looks good too."

"We now want to apply all these benefits to the rest of our stores," he added.

Sainsbury’s pledged to open a minimum of two green supermarket-sized stores every year and one Sainsbury’s local.

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