World first in sustainability standards

The world’s first ‘Outstanding’ rating for a retail building has been awarded to a UK supermarket by the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM).

The supermarket, which overlooks the London Olympic Park, generates 100 percent of its energy through renewable sources, including wind power, small-scale hydro and biomass.

The company behind the achievement is Waitrose, owned by the John Lewis Partnership. They have become the first supermarket to run completely off-grid due to the creation of their own ‘energy centre’. They have also committed to new, sustainable technology, for instance through installing water-cooled, propane-based fridges, which reduce energy demand by 25 percent.

The shop itself was constructed using recycled materials. Low carbon lighting and water usage reduction technologies are also in place. On top of this, all unusable food waste from the shop is sent to an anaerobic digestion plant where it is converted into renewable energy, which then goes back into the national grid.

“This is a remarkable demonstration of how the sector can adopt the highest level of sustainability and use innovative technology to drive energy efficiency,” said Martin Townsend, Director of BREEAM. “Using BREEAM is a key part of Waitrose’s carbon reduction and social responsibility and we congratulate the project team on their success.”

The BREEAM rating was announced last week, and now the company is building two more energy centres, which will be fuelled by woodchip and will support two stores elsewhere in the UK. These centres will open later this year and the corresponding supermarkets, located in Bracknell and East Cowes, will also have cold air retrieval, electric vehicle charging points, automatic presence control lighting, biodiversity features to conserve and enhance the natural environment, and sun pipe technology.

Waitrose is hoping that these schemes will also achieve the ‘Outstanding’ rating from BREEAM. The John Lewis Partnership first registered for BREEAM accreditation in 2008; however, BREEAM has been in existence since 1990. In that time 200,000 buildings have been certified, and over a million have been registered for assessment. The ratings reflect a standard for best practice in sustainable building design, construction and operation. Accreditation has become one of the most comprehensive and widely recognised measures of a building’s environmental performance.

“We always aim to achieve a ‘Very Good’ or ‘Excellent’ rating from BREEAM, so we are delighted to have gone one step further,” said Nigel Keen, Director of Development at Waitrose.

“We strive to reduce our impact on the environment and continually look for ways to reduce the carbon footprint of our shops. We have a long-term commitment to work with our suppliers to look at ways of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.”

 

 

Image 01: Waitrose

Image 02: markhillary | flickr

Image 03: HerryLawford | flickr