Waitrose ‘outstanding’ environmental award

BREEAM has awarded the Stratford City branch of Waitrose an outstanding rating for environmental standards.

The store, which opened last autumn at Westfield Stratford City, is the first Waitrose to be run completely off the grid thanks to an energy centre in the shopping mall.

The design of the building has incorporated a number of environmentally friendly and sustainable features including water-cooled, propane-based fridges that reduce energy demand by 25%. The site has also implemented low carbon lighting and all waste food is sent to an anaerobic digestion plant where it is then converted into renewable energy.

Because of its green achievements, BREEAM, which assesses the design of sustainable buildings, gave the shop an outstanding rating.

Nigel Keen, director of development at Waitrose, said, “We always aim to achieve a ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ rating from BREEAM, so we are delighted to have gone one step further at Stratford and maintain our focus on responsible development and carbon reduction initiatives across our business.

“We have a long term commitment to work with our suppliers to look at ways of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and are delighted to open our first branch which is running completely off the grid.”

Martin Townsend, director of BREEAM, congratulated Waitrose on their success and said it was a “remarkable demonstration of how the sector can adopt the highest level of sustainability and use innovative technology to drive energy efficiency”.

This is all part of the work that Waitrose has undertaken to ensure that 100% of the retailer’s electricity is generated from renewable energy sources.

Last year Waitrose opened its first biomass powered store on the Isle of Wight. The pilot project is the basis for a smaller model to be used across John Lewis and Waitrose stores, with the first in Bracknell, Berkshire. It is hoped that the Cowes and Bracknell sites will be awarded with Outstanding BREEAM ratings in the near future.

If you want to follow the Waitrose’s good example and reduced dependency on dirty fossil fuels then consider Good Energy, the only 100% renewable energy company in the UK.

Related articles:

First biomass powered Waitrose store set to open