A California grocery store was recently built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold standards, incorporating energy and water reduction measures, efficient lighting and recycled materials.
The Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Cathedral City, Calif., just opened the store’s first certified LEED Gold by the U.S. Green Building Council. The construction used 90 percent recycled steel and typically Fresh & Easy’s stores incorporate solar tracking skylights, automatically dimming lights, and LED lighting.
Fresh & Easy’s stores are typically 10,000 square feet, smaller than the typical supermarket, and use 30 percent less energy. Fresh & Easy recycles or reuses all of its shipping and display materials and uses environmentally-friendly trailers to transport food.
Fresh & Easy currently has 127 stores in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada, with 71 stores in Southern California. The company is a pilot member of the LEED Volume Certification Program and has invested in a 500,000 sq ft solar roof installation on its distribution center in Riverside, Calif.
