Morrisons on Thursday (7) has today opened an innovative lower environmental impact store in Little Clacton as part of its drive to become a more sustainable business.
The new store has been built from scratch, incorporates a range of structural features and loose products to reduce carbon emissions, energy and resources. The supermarket claims the site will have 43 percent lower operational emissions than a standard store.
Innovations in the new store include 366 loose and plastic-free products, including pasta, coffee, herbs, household cleaning products, health & beauty lines, petfood, bakery and fruit and vegetables.
The new store also has next-generation fridges powered by CO2 from agricultural waste, roof solar panels to provide a fifth of energy, rainwater harvesting for toilet flushing, a near zero waste back-of-house system, and facilities to recycle customers’ waste.
In addition to the low-impact design and decreased packaging and waste, the store also claims to offer more locally sourced products, a range of biodiversity schemes, more healthy foods, and extra support to the local community.
Over 250 local beers, spirits, fruits, vegetables, eggs, pies, breads, jams, teas, sauces, biscuits, and crisps in the store will be supplied from less than 35 miles away, against an average of 50 lines in Morrisons regular stores in the South East, reports said.
“This store is a significant step forward on our sustainability journey,” reports quoted David Potts, CEO of Morrisons, as saying.
“It brings together all of the environmental and social initiatives we have created that can be rolled out into other stores across the country. It will start to inform the design of many more similar stores to come.”
