GREEN-minded Leamington shoppers can soon browse the supermarket aisles with a clearer conscience.
The doors of Aldi’s first ever eco concept store are opening in the town tomorrow (Thursday).
Team GB star Alexandra Danson and Paralympic GB champion Lauren Rowles will be on hand to cut the ribbon as well as hand out complimentary bags of fruit and vegetables to the first 30 customers in the queue.
The supermarket, at The Shires Retail Park, has been designed to significantly reduce carbon consumption, with sustainable building materials and design changes estimated to reduce life-cycle carbon emissions by up to two-thirds.
The building has timber fibre insulation, cement replacement concrete, recycled lighting columns and low temperature tarmac, as well as a partial green roof and energy saving initiatives including solar panels. While the car park has dedicated electric vehicle charging points.
The store also aims to help make it easier for shoppers to reduce, reuse and recycle, with numerous plastic-reduction initiatives being trialled. Run by Store Manager Callum Hadley and his team, the supermarkets boasts a ‘hard to recycle’ unit located at the store entrance to allow customers to recycle items which are not collected by local authorities and a nuts and coffee refill fixture selling packaging-free products to help customers shop more sustainably and at even lower prices.
Aldi will use the store to test and learn which elements work best, both for customers and in reducing carbon consumption. If successful, these elements may then be rolled out to other stores across the country.
Aldi Chief Executive Officer, Giles Hurley, said: “Now more than ever, we must do our bit for the environment and this store offers us the ability to easily explore new in-store initiatives and low carbon store designs. We are committed to reducing our environmental impact in any way we can and are continuing to explore new initiatives all the time.
“What’s even better is that many of the changes made to this store, whether it be the energy-saving initiatives or our latest packaging-free trial, could allow us to put even more money back into the pockets of our customers.”
