Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is opening its second GreenChill certified store at Oceanside Blvd. and College Blvd. in Oceanside, Calif., on Wednesday.

Two weeks ago, Fresh & Easy opened its first GreenChill store in Rosemead, Calif., which was also the first grocery store in Southern California to utilize a CO2 refrigeration unit.

Fresh & Easy worked closely with partners Kysor/Warren and Southwest Refrigeration on the Oceanside store, which earned its silver certification award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) GreenChill Partnership by meeting tough benchmarks for cutting emissions that harm the earth’s protective ozone layer and contribute to global warming. Fewer than 40 of the nation’s 35,000 grocery stores have received GreenChill Store Certification awards.

“Fresh & Easy’s commitment to the environment through reducing refrigerant emissions is commendable,” said Keilly Witman, manager of EPA’s GreenChill Partnership. “We’re excited to see Fresh & Easy open its second GreenChill certified store this month!”

On average, Fresh & Easy stores use 30% less energy than a typical supermarket-helping save customers money while helping the environment. Fresh & Easy uses LED lighting in external signs and freezer cases, offers customer recycling in every store, and uses advanced refrigeration and freezer units to cut back on energy usage.

“In addition to our efforts to reduce refrigerant emissions, we also are working on innovative ways to save energy, such as utilizing skylights, LED lighting and technological advancements like EnviroTower, which saves a significant amount of water in our stores,” said Steve Hagen, Fresh & Easy’s director of procurement while presenting at the FMI Energy & Store Development Conference.

EPA’s GreenChill Partnership works with food retailers to reduce refrigerant emissions and decrease their impact on the ozone layer and climate change. Under the agreement with the EPA, Fresh & Easy works to achieve to the following:

* Transition to refrigerants that have a lower environmental impact;
* Lower refrigerant charge sizes and eliminate leaks;
* Adopt green refrigeration technologies, strategies and practices.

Fresh & Easy is opening nine stores in California this month, including three stores in San Diego County this week. The company operates 165 stores in California, Arizona and Nevada.