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Living Green: Business pursues eco-friendly strategies

The exterior of the Marquette Food Co-op, located at 502 W. Washington St. in Marquette is pictured. The co-op pursues a number of sustainability strategies, including a variety of energy-efficiency and water-saving measures in the building itself, a bring-your-own bag program, an emphasis on local and organic foods, a number of recycling options and much more. (Journal photo by Corey Kelly)

MARQUETTE — There’s much that can be done within retail environments and grocery stores to make the shopping experience a little greener.

At the Marquette Food Co-op, located along the 500 block of West Washington Street in Marquette, customers and employees alike can pursue a more eco-friendly experience through a variety of approaches.

From bring-your-own bag programs and an emphasis on local and organic foods, to an internal sustainability team and many recycling opportunities for staff and customers, to energy-efficiency and water-saving measures in the building itself, the co-op aims to promote environmental sustainability in many ways, according to information about the program.

Offering a variety of local food options is important for a number of reasons, as “food that is locally sourced supports our local economy, travels fewer miles, retains more nutrients, and tastes better,” according to the co-op.

To promote recycling in its store and cafe, the co-op offers bins for recyclable cans and containers to be placed in. It also provides recycling bins for products that can sometimes be more difficult to recycle, such as batteries, oral care products and candle wax.

Battery recycling bins at the Marquette Food Co-op are pictured. Households can drop off batteries for recycling at the co-op and several other locations around the county, as the local battery recycling program picks up batteries collected at these locations to recycle them and keep them out of the landfill. Beyond battery recycling, the co-op also houses recycling bins for oral care products and candle wax, as well as bins for its customers to recycle cans and other containers. (Journal photo courtesy of Maura Davenport)

“The MFC actively works to reduce the amount of waste that enters our local landfill through recycling, composting, reuse, community donations, and other waste reduction efforts,” information from the co-op states.

Offering recycling opportunities for these items is significant, as batteries can “leach potentially hazardous components into the soil and groundwater” if not recycled and the oral care product recycling drop box “keeps items that are unable to be processed by most municipal recycling programs out of the landfill and turns them into school supplies, playground equipment and more,” program information states.

Beyond recycling, the co-op pursues a variety of approaches to make its 21,000-square-foot building more energy efficient, even receiving an Energy Excellence Award for the Best Commercial Project from then-Gov. Rick Snyder in 2015 for its “commitment to energy-efficient practices in renovating an abandoned grocery building,” according to the co-op.

While the building along West Washington Street has about triple the space that the co-op’s previous Baraga Avenue location had, the larger building only increased energy costs by about 29%, according to information about the building.

“When re-designing 502 W. Washington to fit the needs of the Marquette Food Co-op prior to its grand opening in 2014, we surveyed owners to see what was important to them in their new store. Many expressed that they wanted the building to be as energy efficient as possible,” program information states. “From there, our Board of Directors developed a policy that stated if there was a choice to make building components energy efficient throughout the process, they would always choose energy efficiency if cost was within 10% of alternatives.”

Some of the efficiency measures in the building include reclaiming heat from the compressor room for hot water and supplemental heating; a parking lot design including “intentional green space” to soak up moisture and minimize runoff into the city water system and collecting rainwater from the rooftop, which is filtered and used to irrigate green spaces and recycling cooler condensation to flush the building’s toilets, according to the co-op.

Beyond these measures, the store’s lighting is primarily LED, “which lasts longer than traditional incandescent lighting and reduces carbon emissions,” program information states. Furthermore, all lights are on timers or motion detectors, which helps to further reduce energy consumption.

Some of the co-op’s efforts were accomplished through the co-op’s internal sustainably team, the 502 EcoTribe, a group of staff members from each of the co-op’s departments that meets each month to discuss and implement sustainability strategies. The team also reports the co-op’s sustainability impact metrics directly to its parent co-op, National Co-op Grocers, receiving a Sustainability Star from the NCG for its sustainability impacts in 2017.

“Since EcoTribe was formed in 2016, it’s spearheaded several initiatives within the Co-op. EcoTribe is responsible for bringing in reusable dishes and coffee mugs into the deli and starting the ‘Bring Y

our Own Bag’ discount,” information about the EcoTribe states. “The group also made the decision to join the Climate Collaborative and planned last year’s documentary screening of ‘Wasted! The Story of Food Waste’ and panel discussion.”

For those who wish to make their grocery shopping and dining habits more eco-friendly, the co-op recommends investing in reusable grocery and produce bags, coffee mugs and utensils to avoid waste of single-use items; dining in; walking or riding a bike to the store; planning out meals to avoid food waste and purchasing organic, fair trade and/or local products when possible.

To learn more about the Marquette Food Co-op, which is located at 502 W. Washington St. in Marquette, call 906-225-0671 or visit marquettefood.coop. The store is open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

Cecilia Brown can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248. Her email address is cbrown@miningjournal.net.

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