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U.S. EPA recognizes SoCal supermarkets Sprouts Farmers Market, Supervalu as GreenChill Partners for Environmental Achievements

Release Date: 09/23/2010
Contact Information: Francisco Arcaute, (213) 244-1815, Cell (213) 798-1404, [email protected]

LOS ANGELES – Sprouts Farmers Market and Supervalu, parent company of Lucky’s Southern California and Albertsons, are among the recipients of this year’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s GreenChill Partnership 2010 Environmental Achievement Awards. Regional supermarket companies featured prominently among the award winners.

GreenChill is an EPA partnership with supermarkets to reduce refrigerant emissions and decrease their impact on the ozone layer and climate change. GreenChill partners work to transition to low-impact refrigerants; lower refrigerant charge sizes and eliminate leaks; and adopt green refrigeration technologies, strategies, and practices.

Sprouts Farmers Market was recognized by EPA for having the best emissions rate of all GreenChill partner companies. The "Best Emissions Rate" Award is the most prestigious of GreenChill's annual environmental achievement awards.

"Sprouts Farmers Market is a great example of a new GreenChill partner 'getting it right' right from the start,” said Keilly Witman, Manager of EPA's GreenChill Partnership. “It is impressive that in their first reporting year as part of the GreenChill Partnership, they've won our ‘Best Emissions Rate’ Award."

Supervalu, parent company of Lucky’s Southern California and Albertsons, earned a GreenChill Environmental Achievement Award for exceeding the company’s target emissions reduction goal to reduce greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting refrigerant emissions.

“When companies join GreenChill and agree to go above and beyond regulatory requirements to reduce harmful refrigerant emissions from their stores, they are committing to set challenging annual emissions reduction goals,” said Witman. “The employees of the companies that exceeded their voluntary reduction goals deserve to be very proud that their hard work throughout the year paid off. The main beneficiary of this hard work is the environment. These stores’ customers can feel proud that their supermarkets take environmental protection seriously.”

Supervalu also earned GreenChill’s Distinguished Supermarket Partner Award for the company’s overall efforts to advance the mission of EPA’s GreenChill Partnership.

"Supervalu's many contributions to EPA's GreenChill Partnership made it easy to select this year's recipient of our Distinguished Partner Award for a supermarket partner," said Witman. "Supervalu excels in corporate-wide emissions reductions, information sharing with other partners, commitment to special projects, and last, but not least, individual store environmental achievement."

Kysor/Warren, one of the top manufacturers of green refrigeration systems for supermarkets in the nation, also earned GreenChill’s Distinguished Partner award.

"EPA is proud to recognize Kysor/Warren with our Distinguished Partner Award this year," said Witman. "Kysor/Warren continues GreenChill's tradition of recognizing an advanced technology manufacturer for outstanding contributions to furthering the Partnership's mission to reduce refrigerant emissions from supermarkets. Kysor/Warren's contribution to GreenChill over the past year has been of the highest caliber, both in terms of quality and level of commitment."

EPA estimates that if supermarkets nationwide reduced their emissions to the GreenChill average emissions rate, the industry would eliminate the equivalent of 22,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, equal to removing nearly 4,000,000 passenger vehicles from the road. This would also help restore stratospheric ozone, which protects the Earth from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation, a leading cause of skin cancer.

GreenChill now has a total of 50 partners with almost 5,500 stores in 48 states. For additional information on EPA’s GreenChill Partnership, please visit: www.epa.gov/greenchill.