Supermarket giant Tesco has opened the doors to its first ‘green’ supermarket store in Scotland .
The eco-friendly store in Dumfries – the third Tesco outlet in the town – uses a timber frame instead of steel, makes greater use of natural daylight and generates its own electricity .
Tesco claims the green store is 70 per cent more carbon efficient compared to the same building three ago.
The supermarket has created 200 new retail jobs in the town and Tesco bosses believe it can help retain trade in the area and boost the local economy.
Doug Wilson, Tesco’s corporate director for Scotland, said: “I think you will find that at this end of the town people were perhaps leaving and shopping elsewhere.”
“To try to retain some of that spend in the town can only have a positive benefit.”
The opening of the eco store comes after Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy confirmed plans to construct the world’s first zero-carbon store in Cambridgeshire.
The store will feature an on-site combined heat and power plant that will not only meet the store’s entire energy requirements but will also sell surplus energy back to the National Grid .
Britain’s largest retailer, which has been awarded the coveted ‘ Carbon Trust Standard’, has also pledged to halve emissions from existing buildings by 2020 and from all new stores compared with 2006 levels.
“Our aim is not simply to ‘green’ Tesco, but to spark the creation of something much bigger – a mass movement in green consumption,” said Leahy.
The Sunday Times recently ranked Tesco as the 15th greenest company in the UK and the greenest supermarket group.
