Taking a step in the right ‘green’ grocer direction

Maine’s largest supermarket chain, Hannaford, recently announced it is building the first completely “green” supermarket. The design of the building includes solar panels, geothermal heating and cooling, energy-efficient lighting, a recycling program and a rooftop garden designed to insulate and control rainwater. The new Hannaford will be replacing the old high school in Augusta. In addition to the environmentally friendly features of the new supermarket, the contracting company in charge is seeking to recycle 95 percent of the high school that will be demolished for its construction.

If this “green” supermarket is successful, it will go to show that any and every new building proposed in the state of Maine can, and should, be built with minimizing environmental impact in mind.

Green construction is a large hurdle to overcome, but there are many more. If Hannaford wants to pitch itself as the greenest supermarket in town, its next step should focus on the shelves inside. Greener packaging materials such as recycled cardboard and paper, less plastic and on-site options to recycle bottles and cans would greatly increase the chain’s green image. Giving in-store credit to people who bring back their empty soup cans and milk bottles to recycle would provide an incentive for people to come back and will help the environment.

A focus on locally grown and produced food would cut down on the carbon emissions it took to get that fruit or vegetable on the shelf. Maine’s supermarkets and stores throughout the country need to stop looking big and start producing locally.

A more localized, organic and friendlier vegetable aisle that hints at the aura of a European market would be a refreshing change from the bright, sterile and hostile atmosphere you find at most grocery stores. Shrink-wrapped peppers and grapes should, and will, become a thing of the past. Replacing plastic and foam packaging with simple, organic paper bags or wax paper will do wonders for the local environment. Completely eliminating plastic bags from the checkout counters is another ecofriendly idea. Perhaps Hannaford would find it useful to team up with L.L. Bean and provide customers with complimentary – or at least very cheap – canvas totes and help to their vehicles, which may make up for the inconvenience of nixing the plastic.

If a storewide switch to green packaging isn’t feasible just yet, perhaps Hannaford could devote one or two aisles to completely environmentally friendly foods packaged in recycled and recyclable containers. In addition, sponsoring a community garden on the store property that is fertilized with recycled paper and food that didn’t sell is an efficient and cheap way to turn loss into profit. What better way to cut transportation costs than growing vegetables right next door?

British supermarket chain Marks & Spencer has claimed that it will be “carbon neutral” by the year 2012 by offsetting its carbon emissions. It plans to cut energy consumption, stop using landfill sites and, yes, use and produce ecofriendly packaging. Labels on M&S packaged foods will declare which items have been flown in from outside the United Kingdom. Hannaford could take a similar approach, with green symbols for recycled materials and stickers boasting that the food was locally produced.

Hannaford should overhaul its approach to the environment and set the standard here in the United States by being the first chain to offset its carbon emissions well past neutral and into the black – or green.

Amanda MacCabe of Alton is journalism and political science major at the University of Maine.