Safeway Goes Solar in California

In a September 13th press release of Safeway the giant food corporation announced that it is going solar in its Dublin, California, location and at 22 other locations also in California. United States Congressman John McNerney participated in the tour of the Dublin store's rooftop solar panel on that day, and applauded Safeway's effort and commitment to solar energy and other environmental causes. The Safeway Dublin store is now generating enough energy to run the store on solar power. Twenty two other Safeway stores are expected to follow suit.

The Safeway press release stated that the amount of solar energy used by the Dublin store has the same effect as removing 50 passenger cars from the highways per year or planting 184 acres of pine trees. (The equivalence is due to the store's no longer putting out 487,000 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.)

Another of Safeway's environmentally conscious acts was to move its 295 United.States. fuel stations to 100% renewable wind energy in 1995. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has noted that Safeway is one of the largest green wind energy companies in California and in the top 25 of the Fortune 500 companies for utilizing green wind energy in the nation, according to the Safeway press release.

In addition to its solar and wind energy use, Safeway has initiated power saving acts at its locations as well. For example, Safeway uses no-heat freezer case doors for its freezers to reduce the cost of the electricity involved in keeping the freezers running. For exterior lighting at its stores, Safeway uses LED (light emitting diode) lighting rather than neon lighting, thus using 90% less energy than traditional lighting used by many stores not so technologically sophisticated as Safeway.

The company is an enthusiastic collector of items for recycling as well. It recycles cardboard, plastic, metal wood and compostable material ?all-in-all, approximately five hundred tons of recylcing, as noted by the Safeway press release.