Social Responsibility »  Environmental Responsibility »  Sustainable Stores

Sustainable Stores

In 2007, we revealed our greenest store ever with the opening of Zellers in Waterdown, Ontario. In 2008, we continued down this path by opening new Zellers stores in Hamilton and Whitby, Ontario, as well as a renovation to a Bay store in Waterloo, Ontario.

Some of the sustainable building measures we implemented in these locations include:

• Two windmills, which generate enough electricity to power a house.
• Solar panels, which help light the store.
• A white roof which reflects and disperses heat.
• Touchless faucets and flushers, which reduce water use.
• HVAC – heating, ventilating and air conditioning units, which use no ozone depleting refrigerants.
• Kitchen exhaust control to reduce energy consumption used by ventilating fans.
• Exclusive usage of green products for cleaning the store.
• Return programs for rechargeable batteries and cell phones.
• A program to take back plastic shopping bags and to promote the use of reusable ones.
• Exterior signage that is LED illuminated.
• State of the art InterfaceFLOR covering (carpet) which is carbon neutral, with 40% recycled content and can be fully reclaimed.

These stores also feature a fully automated energy management system that is controlled remotely by our head office. The system allows for central control over the timing of indoor and outdoor lights, temperature control, CO₂ reduction, humidity control, electricity consumption, remote lighting and more. This system allows us to raise temperatures and reduce lighting levels in the store during heat waves in response to energy conservation requests by the Province of Ontario.

We have also installed windmills at two of its existing locations Cloverdale Mall, Etobicoke, Ontario and the Meadowland Centre, Ancaster, Ontario.