[StBernard] Awards and Recognition News Release (Region 6): Sprouts Farmers Market, Whole Foods, and Hill Phoenix Chill for the Environment

[Westley Annis]

Sprouts Farmers Market, Whole Foods, and Hill Phoenix Chill for the
Environment 

  

(Dallas, Texas - September 2, 2009)  EPA's GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration
Partnership announced its 2009 partner awards this week, and among the
awardees are: Sprouts Farmers Market, Whole Foods, and Hill Phoenix.  An EPA
cooperative alliance with the supermarket industry, the GreenChill
Partnership works with supermarkets to reduce their emissions of
ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas refrigerants.  

Sprouts Farmers Market, which owns stores across California, Arizona,
Colorado, and Texas, received a New Partner Award. 

"We look forward to a productive and mutually beneficial partnership with
Sprouts Farmers Market," said Keilly Witman, GreenChill Program Manager.
"The public wants to do business with companies that share their
environmental values. By joining GreenChill, Sprouts Farmers Market is
proving to consumers that they care about the Earth's ozone layer and
climate system." 

  

New partners pledge to go above and beyond regulatory requirements by
measuring and tracking refrigerant emissions that affect climate change and
the Earth's ozone layer, and then setting reduction targets for these
emissions.  Partners also agree to use only ozone-friendly alternatives in
all new and remodeled stores. 

  

"Whole Foods has really focused on reducing refrigerant emissions this past
year, and GreenChill's Most Improved Emissions Rate Award is the result of
that effort," Witman said.  "As a GreenChill Founding Partner, Whole Foods
shares GreenChill's mission to minimize supermarkets' impact on the Earth's
ozone layer and on climate change." 

Refrigeration manufacturer Hill Phoenix also earned a Distinguished Partner
Award for its advanced refrigeration technology, including compact chillers
and secondary loop systems. 

EPA estimates that if every supermarket in the nation joined GreenChill and
reduced its emissions to the current GreenChill average, the nation could
save the equivalent of 22 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and 240
ozone depleting potential (ODP) tons every year, all the while saving $108
million in refrigerant expenses annually. 

  

GreenChill's founding food retail partners created baseline measurements of
corporate-wide refrigerant emissions in 2007 and set goals to reduce those
emissions in 2008.  These partners reduced their aggregated total corporate
emissions rate from 13 percent to 11.9 percent in 2008, an emissions
reduction of 8.5 percent in one year. 

  

GreenChill now has a total of 46 partners, including 37 food retail partners
with over 6,500 stores in 47 states. For additional information on the EPA
GreenChill Partnership, please visit: www.epa.gov/greenchill. 

  

More about activities in EPA Region 6:  http://www.epa.gov/region6
<http://www.epa.gov/region6>  

  

EPA audio file is available at
http://www.epa.gov/region6/6xa/podcast/sep2009.html
<http://www.epa.gov/region6/6xa/podcast/sep2009.html>