Whole Foods Status Report - Commercial Building Partnerships
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is working with Whole Foods Market, one of the companies participating in Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP). Here you will find more information about Whole Foods' involvement with CBP.
Whole Foods' Glastonbury, Connecticut, store.
Whole Foods Background
Whole Foods Market is the world's leader in natural and organic foods, with more than 275 stores in North America and the United Kingdom. Founded in Austin, Texas, in 1980, Whole Foods now employs 52,000 people; nearly 90% are full-time. Existing Whole Foods stores average 36,400 square feet, and stores in development average 47,900 square feet.
Why Whole Foods Participates in Commercial Building Partnerships
Whole Foods has a demonstrated commitment to sustainability, not only in food production and sales, but also in energy use and building design. For example, Whole Foods is the only Fortune 500 Company to purchase renewable energy credits to offset 100% of the electricity the company consumes. And Whole Foods has earned various green building certification levels for more than 10 stores, with many more in development, although the company recognizes that some of those certifications haven't focused deeply on energy use reductions. Whole Foods' participation in CBP and willingness to reduce energy use significantly in their stores is a natural extension of their commitment to protecting the environment while maintaining a healthy bottom line.
"Whole Buildings are a focus of Whole Foods Market. We've had internal green building standards and practices in place for years, and we've earned various green building certifications. But we recognize that the food retail industry has significant building energy requirements for refrigeration, comfort cooling and heating, and lighting, not to mention other service area energy requirements. We have a deep commitment to using the information we've gathered as well as innovating holistically to design and build stores to use significantly less energy than allowed by code. There are proven as well as cutting edge strategies and technologies that can help us get there, and we are all about challenging the status quo and celebrating results with our peers and our stakeholders."
— Kathleen Loftus, Global Leader Sustainable Engineering, Maintenance & Energy Management, Whole Foods
Where Whole Foods is in the Process
The Glastonbury store uses a UTC Power fuel cell to produce half the electricity and heat, and nearly all the hot water required to operate the store.
Whole Foods is in Stage One (Pre-Planning Phase) of the CBP process. The company is working with developers to integrate design and engineering best practices to ensure that they are taking advantage of every opportunity. Whole Foods read through the NREL Advanced Building Design Guidelines for Supermarkets and realized that they've already incorporated many of those best practices into store development specifications and design guidelines. The company recently selected a store to be designed and built with a developer that is also participating in CBP, and they are sharing information with NREL on baseline store energy use and service offerings. Whole Foods hopes to have their first low energy store open in 2010! Read more about the CBP Process.
What's Worked
Whole Foods reports that they enjoy working with NREL's Building Technologies staff. "They have expertise in all areas of building energy end use, state of the art efficiency technologies, and alternative energy sources. They even understand supermarket construction and energy requirements and challenges, and that's no small feat!"
Lessons Learned
Whole Foods has learned that it takes a team working diligently at the outset of a project-open-minded yet focused on timelines and coordination. This process requires a lot of collaboration up front, but almost always results in many fewer change orders and a more holistically designed building. Buildings designed this way are more likely to be right-sized, have right-sized energy systems, and use fewer natural resources in the construction process (mined, refined, or extracted building products). Carefully designed buildings can also use local energy resources more readily (solar, geothermal, and others).
For more information, please e-mail Kathy Loftus at Kathy.Loftus@wholefoods.com.
