Retailers open ‘green’ convenience stores

How green can a convenience store be?

At least two retailers seem to be exploring the question, announcing openings of stores designed to limit energy consumption and address a host of other environmental matters.

Kum & Go, West Des Moines, Iowa, said it has a commitment to developing environmentally friendly building and operating practices. It announced that its 3,400-square-foot store in Owasso, Okla., which opened April 1, integrates heavily insulated glass, LED cooler door lights and energy-efficient coolers into its energy-efficient design.

And another company, Good to Go, has announced that it will open “the nation's first ecologically friendly convenience store, car wash and alternate fuel station,” on May 1 in Grand Chute, Wis.

It will feature a green roof with plants and sod that minimize absorption of sunlight that could heat the building and force overuse of its HVAC system, according to news reports. The company claimed this could result in energy savings of up to 25 percent during the summer. The soil also acts like a sponge to absorb rain and reduce storm water runoff by as much as 95 percent after a one-inch downpour.

The business is to be built to specifications of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, according to news reports. The program is administered by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), Washington D.C., a non-profit coalition of building industry leaders.

The Council supports education and research, including Greenbuild – an international conference and expo focused on green building. The Council also supports an education and advocacy program delivered at the local level through 77 chapters across the U.S.

Since its founding in 1993, the Council said, it has been focused “on fulfilling the building and construction industry’s vision for its own transformation to high-performance green building.” The Council includes more than 14,600 member companies and organizations. In the past five years, over 3.2 billion square feet of building space have been involved with the LEED program, according to the Council’s Web site. The annual U.S. market in green building products and services was over $7 billion in 2005 and is now over $12 billion, according to the Council.

Members of the Council include building owners and end-users, real estate developers, facility managers, architects, designers, engineers, general contractors, subcontractors, product and building system manufacturers, government agencies, and nonprofits. Representatives of each of these sectors participate in the development of the LEED Rating Systems and the direction of the Council through volunteer service on USGBC’s open committees.