User:Eswanger/Whole Foods Market: Difference between revisions
I added a subheading under environmental involvement describing Whole Foods contributions to renewable energy |
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Revision as of 18:51, 4 March 2024
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Efforts[edit]
Whole Foods Market has a policy of donating at least five percent of its annual net profits to charitable causes. Some of this mandate is accomplished through store-level donations held on certain "5% days" throughout the year. The rest of it comes from various targeted projects by the company.
Environmental involvement[edit]
In May 1999, Whole Foods Market joined the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a global independent, not-for-profit organization promoting sustainable fisheries and responsible fishing practices worldwide to help preserve fish stocks for future generations. The company first began selling MSC-certified seafood in 2000, and a growing selection of MSC-certified fish continues to be available.
Whole Foods placed third on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "Top 25 Green Power Partners". The company also received the EPA Green Power Award in 2004 and 2005 and the Partner of the Year award in 2006 and 2007. A January 8, 2007, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report listed Whole Foods Market as the second-highest purchaser of green power nationwide, citing its actions as helping drive the development of new renewable energy sources for the electricity generation. The EPA report showed Whole Foods Market using 463.1 million kilowatt hours annually. It was covered, 100 percent net-wise, by its total electricity from biomass, geothermal, small hydro, solar, and wind sources.
Energy
Whole Foods Market claims on the store website that the moves they have made in terms of energy efficiency are installing electric vehicle charging stations, harnessing solar energy, achieving green building certificates, using green refrigeration, and designing grocery stores of the future.[1]
Whole Foods Market has been a frontrunner in the race to commit to renewable energy. In 2006 the company was amongst the first retailers, and the first Fortune 500 company to offset 100% of their emissions by purchasing Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).[2] Skepticism surrounding this purchase and RECs as a whole have been prevalent online. Harvard Business Review writes that “the money paid to purchase those RECs, in theory, subsidizes the higher cost of producing clean electricity, making this alternative competitive, or creates a market mechanism that will cause more renewables to be produced.”[3] The energy produced by wind farms that are benefactors of RECs is distributed to the same power grid as energy from fossil fuels, making the success of RECs difficult to track and quantify. One highlight of researcher Michael Gillenwater’s Energy Policy, states that “claims that the U.S. green power market result in additional wind power lack credibility.”[4] A 2022 study found that the purchasing of RECs inflates the actual value of this environmental commodity in terms of limiting emissions.[5]
The company has made more strides in terms of infrastructure relating to energy efficiency. Whole Foods Market has several stores that function entirely on UTC power fuel cells on-site.[6] One of the company's Mississippi locations plans on utilizing a local wind farm funded by Amazon to source the store’s energy needs. [7]In the case study of a Raleigh, North Carolina Whole Foods Market, the company worked with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Commercial Building Partnerships to plan and evaluate the construction of an extremely energy-efficient building, which if successful, would have been rolled out to other locations.[8] Whole Foods Market is also working with the Environmental Protection Agency's GreenChill program to reduce refrigerant emissions. Refrigeration is extremely energy-intensive, but the initiative to lower emissions in this area has led the company to start using a refrigerant of which the global warming potential is 68% lower than the most commonly used refrigerants.[9] Whole Foods signed an agreement with SolarCity to install solar panels on up to 100 stores. In 2015 the company was named in the top 25 companies by number of solar installations. Whole Foods also reduced their energy usage by 21% between 2010 and 2021.[10]
Whole Foods Market extends their energy initiatives globally. The company’s non-profit organization, Whole Planet, which aims to alleviate poverty also pertains to climate mitigation. In 2023 the company announced that they would fund the distribution of solar home kits across Sierra Leone, making energy more accessible with a Pay-as-you-Go model.[11]
- ^ "Our Built Environment Programs". Whole Foods Market. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
- ^ Porter; Kramer (2006). "Strategy and Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Responsibility" (PDF). Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 03/04/2024.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help) - ^ Schendler, Auden (2006-09-01). "Energy-Credit Buyers Beware". Harvard Business Review. ISSN 0017-8012. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
- ^ Gillenwater, Michael (2013-12). "Probabilistic decision model of wind power investment and influence of green power market". Energy Policy. 63: 1111–1125. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2013.09.049. ISSN 0301-4215.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Bjørn, Anders; Lloyd, Shannon M.; Brander, Matthew; Matthews, H. Damon (2022-06). "Renewable energy certificates threaten the integrity of corporate science-based targets". Nature Climate Change. 12 (6): 539–546. doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01379-5. ISSN 1758-6798.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "New Whole Foods Market(R) in Fairfield, Conn., to - ProQuest". www.proquest.com. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
- ^ "Amazon wind farm in Mississippi will power local Whole Foods Market, fulfillment centers". Supermarket News. 2023-07-28. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
- ^ Deru, M.; Bonnema, E.; Doebber, I.; Hirsch, A.; McIntyre, M.; Scheib, J. (2011-04-01). Thinking Like a Whole Building: A Whole Foods Market New Construction Case Study (Report). National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States).
- ^ "Whole Foods Market Adopts Honeywell Technology To - ProQuest". www.proquest.com. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
- ^ "Solar Means Business 2015: Top U.S. Corporate Solar Users | SEIA". www.seia.org. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
- ^ "Whole Planet Foundation Approves $50,000 to Smiling Through". www.csrwire.com. Retrieved 2024-03-04.