Wal-Mart is Going Green

 Is green the first thing your think of when someone says “Wal-Mart”? Probably not, but the company is hoping to change that.

Wal-Mart is testing out what it calls it’s “high efficiency” superstore. It’s aim is to use 20 less energy in these stores and thus help to reduce some of the emissions generated by Wal-Mart’s city-block sized ultra-stores.

Wal-Mart is focusing on two aspects of it’s stores, it’s air-conditioning/heating and it’s refrigeration. These two systems work in a brilliantly designed symbiotic system. 100% of the heat rejected from the refrigeration system is piped into the heating system, where it is converted into usable energy. This design also reduces the amount of copper piping used.

The impressive thing about Wal-Mart’s green initiative is the scope of it. Wal-Mart has so much money available to them, they can afford to take chances on new green products. They are testing out brand new products we’ve covered here, such as waterless urinals and LED lighting.

There is a huge variety of other technologies used throughout the store to increase efficiency. They are using special quick-response doors for sealed sections such as the garden center, and skylights to help light the store.

One of the coolest improvements is motion-driven lighting on refrigerator cases. They use LED lights that only turn on when a customer approaches, then quicky turn off then they leave. Pretty cool!

These initiatives are expected to reduce the energy consumption of each store 20%, which is a heck of a lot when you think of how much energy these stores much use.

To celebrate the opening of the first of these high-efficiency stores, Wal-Mart is giving away 21,000 energy-saving CFL bulbs to seniors and low-income families.

Many eco-bloggers have dismissed Wal-Marts attempt at going green, but I for one welcome the change. Wal-Mart might not be the ideal picture of a green company, and there’s no doubt they contribute to a lot of the problem, but they are also the biggest retailer to date to embrace and test green technology.

It’s quite possible that more companies will start to look at green technologies if Wal-Mart’s experiment is successful, and whether Wal-Mart is doing all this for the right reasons or not, being more energy efficient can’t be bad!

via Green Technology

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