Subscribe via RSS
We are so excited to announce that we have just finalized the largest purchase of renewable energy credits (RECs) ever made by a U.S. retailer. Woo hoo! Whole Foods Market purchased 776 million-kilowatt-hours of RECs from wind farms, which equals 100% of our company’s electricity use in all of our North American locations. And that’s not all! Nearly 90% of this year’s purchase is specifically helping fund E.ON Climate & Renewables’ (EC&R) Texas-based Panther Creek wind farm. Our investment is going to help bring new power to the grid.
Panther Creek began operating its first phase in 2008 and its final phase of construction was recently completed. Our purchase of RECs has provided valuable additional financing to the project. EC&R is developing a number of large scale wind projects in the U.S. over the coming years and extra funding from REC sales will play a crucial role in their growth.
So, what does our 776 million-kilowatt-hours purchase mean to the environment? It will help avoid creating up to 868 million pounds of carbon dioxide pollution – which is comparable to taking more than 72,000 cars off of the roads for a year, or planting nearly 3.6 million mature trees. Not too shabby.
Of course, if you’ve been following along, you know this isn’t our first or only green effort. We’ve been a proponent of offsetting since 2006 – that’s when we became the first Fortune 500 Company to offset 100% of electricity use with RECs. Thanks goes to our partner, Boulder, Colo.-based Renewable Choice Energy, who has helped make this happen. Our continued purchase of RECs is part of our comprehensive energy commitment, which also includes plans to more than triple the number of stores with solar panels and to invest in energy-reduction opportunities while retrofitting existing stores with energy-efficient lighting, equipment and mechanical components.
You can read more about our green efforts.
Comments are moderated
and generally will be posted if they are on topic and not abusive. For more information, please see
our 
Congratulations!
September 15th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Excellent effort! I shop at Whole Foods for the incredible bounty of fresh and wholesome foods, but this sort of thing makes me feel even better about it. Keep up the good work.
September 15th, 2009 at 10:46 am
This is the kind of stuff that makes me LOVE to be not only a Whole Foods customer, but also a Whole Foods Team Member! Woo hoo!
September 15th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Way to go Whole Foods!!!
September 15th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
This is another reason why I love Whole Foods.. and will continue to loyally shop at your stores for all of my groceries. The company’s commitment to organic and locally sourced foods for the sustainability of our planet and your commitment to green environmental efforts will help our collective future. Thanks for the commitment!
September 15th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I couldn’t be more proud to work for such a great company as I am hearing this. And this is only one of the many, many great things WFM does to better the world. Thank you SO much!
September 17th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Think about LEED and what Hannaford in Augusta Maine has done to reduce energy in it’s stores by 50% – why not WHOLE FOODS?
September 20th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Power monitoring power strips… know how much energy you are using…
October 31st, 2009 at 11:53 pm