Whole Foods Market, the American health food giant which is opening a flagship store in London next year, has become the first major US company to convert all of its energy to green sources.

The move will cut carbon dioxide emissions by the same amount as taking 60,000 cars off the road for a year or planting 90,000 acres of trees to absorb the gas, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Whole Foods, the largest health food chain in America, has chosen wind power as its preferred source of renewable energy but cannot link its system directly to wind farms because they supply power directly to America’s national electricity grid.

The company will instead continue to use power from the grid but will buy wind energy credits to cover 100 per cent of its projected energy use for 2006.

Producers of renewable forms of energy sell credits through brokers. The proceeds help offset the additional cost of generating electricity in a way that is kind to the environment rather than by burning fuels such as coal.

Whole Foods is best known in the UK for its Fresh & Wild organic chain. It plans to open a Whole Foods store in the former Barkers department store building on Kensington High Street in London next year.

Click link for the rest of the story…

Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/busines…