Joe Berman, manager of Corporate Social Responsibility at Price Chopper/Market 32, says third-party certification is a way to express the company’s commitment to sustainability. “We’re building our pilot stores under Green Globes to diversify our green building approach,” asserts Berman. “We want to take our understanding from conceptual to experiential, and evolve our proficiency using several recognized and respected green building rating systems.”
“One Green Globes advantage is that it allows Market 32 to address sustainable design with more flexibility. “We can pursue certification within the context of our grocery store formats without having to meet requirements that aren’t appropriate for our building type,” Berman explains.
“Green Globes’ flexible approach is capable of accommodating a broad spectrum of project types. It’s tailorable to our building’s specific format and needs and offers a more boots-on-the ground approach.”
Market 32’s Store 039 implemented several strategies that led to its Green Globes rating:
- Advanced refrigeration design
- Strong emphasis placed on energy conservation measures leading to an Energy Star® energy performance score of 94
- Water conservation measures producing a water use reduction of 53 perce over the baseline building
- A high-quality indoor environment for employees and customers through low-VOC materials and sound dampening strategies
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The certification process was very quick thanks to the way Green Globes documentation is submitted. “We didn’t need to populate an enormous amount of online templates and then go back and try to address vague technical advice comments,” Berman recalls. “We filled out our design and construction survey, and then distributed documents to our subcontractors via fileshare, which saved a lot of time and oversight labor. It was an extremely user-friendly format.”
The assessor reviewed the online project documents and notified the team when he saw missing pieces of information. “That offered a much higher degree of turnaround time as well,” says Berman. “He was very specific about what he was looking for so we could manage our workflow and target our efforts effectively. It’s a much more linear way of sharing information.”
The direct connectivity to the Green Building Initiative team and personal interaction with the assessor set the stage for a collaborative relationship. In addition to the extremely valuable feedback loop, Berman appreciated that the assessor came to the site to complete his review. “He was able to confirm that we implemented what we said we were doing as opposed to making assumptions based on documentation. That provides a stronger layer of credibility to the assertions we’re making.”
Berman says his company has had an overwhelmingly positive experience with the Green Building Initiative and Green Globes certification system. “We‘ve been so satisfied with the process that we’ve registered four other projects, and we’ll continue to pursue Green Globes certifications for Market 32 stores moving forward.”
