Sustainability

New York – Give your project the recognition it deserves — enter Chain Store Age’s 32nd annual Retail Store of the Year design competition. The entry deadline is December 23, 2013.

More than 20 competition categories are featured, including department stores, supermarkets, discounters, restaurants, convenience stores, specialty stores, service, sustainability and pop-up stores. This year, for the first time, the competition also includes the category of in-store digital innovation.

Gloucester City, N.J. — Nest International, a leading facility maintenance management firm, has appointed Joni Mayo to the position of VP of sales. Mayo brings 30 years of proven sales, marketing and operations leadership experience. Mayo joins Nest from Sylvania Lighting Services where she led sales in excess of $49 million in 2012.

Peter Freedman was appointed managing director of the Consumer Goods Forum with responsibility for leading the Paris-based organization’s efforts to promote better lives through better business.

Mechanicsville, Va. – Supervalu is shipping goods to its grocery stores across the Eastern region with a much smaller carbon footprint, thanks to the recent addition of 35 Class 8 Volvo trucks that operate on compressed natural gas (CNG). The fleet is the largest of its kind on the East Coast, and the company plans to add another 20 trucks next year.  

By Scott Thibodeau, [email protected]

Walgreens has opened the nation’s first net zero energy retail store, in Evanston, Ill. (A net zero building produces energy equal to or greater than it consumes.)

The new Walgreens features two wind turbines, nearly 850 solar panels and a geothermal heating and cooling system burrowed 550 ft. into the ground. Combined, the store’s energy-saving technologies and systems are expected to reduce its electricity consumption to 200,000 kilowatt-hours per year, which is about half of an average Chicago-area Walgreens’ store energy footprint.

Data center retrofit cuts cooling costs by 93%

Retailers are constantly on the hunt for energy savings, and data centers offer huge potential: By 2020, data centers could consume 10% of all U.S. power, according to some experts. Here’s how outdoor gear and apparel retailer Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) is working to reduce energy costs and its environmental footprint in this critical area of operations.