UK: Sainsbury's claims to have created the most environmentally friendly convenience store following the opening of its latest store in Haslucks Green, Solihull.
The new store is said to use environmental technology not normally seen in a store of this size. This includes solar panels, double glazing, CO2 refrigeration and LED lighting.

The recycling rate for construction waste was said to be 98%. Sainsbury's maintain that the store's design also reduced the actual construction time by four weeks, helping to further reduce its impact on the environment.

The 42 solar panels on the roof generate around 9,000kWh of electricity per year, the demand for which has been reduced by the deployment of LED lighting throughout the whole shop and the 30% less heat requirement due to the use of double glazing on the shop front and timber structural insulated panels within its construction. The CO2 refrigeration system is said to have reduced carbon emissions by 33%

'It's a great achievement to fit all of this technology into such a small store,' said Paul Crewe, Sainsbury's head of sustainability, engineering & energy. 'Each one has been selected to help us reduce our environmental impact and achieve reduced carbon and energy savings.We believe this makes it Britain's greenest convenience store finished to the very highest standards.

'The environmental features in the store will also play a big part in helping us to achieve our stretching carbon emissions reduction target of 30% absolute by 2020.We will be monitoring its performance closely over the coming months and hope it will provide an important blueprint for future Sainsbury's Local stores.'

Sainsbury's has ambitious plans for its convenience store, opening 87 such stores in 2012/13 to bring its total number of convenience stores to 530.