The Green Grocer

“I know, when you see me, you just see an old guy in a suit,” says Joe Pettus. “But I’m really a country boy, a hippie.” If that’s true, Pettus is the perfect man to lead Pleasanton-based Safeway in its greening initiatives. With a background in engineering and a “profound love for the outdoors,” he’s got what’s needed: intellect and heart. Safeway is the first (and, so far, only) retailer to join the Chicago Climate Exchange, whose members pledge to reduce their carbon footprint—if they fail to meet their self-set goal, they have to buy offsets from members who have exceeded theirs. (Safeway aims to reduce emissions by 6 percent before 2010.) This year, the company will purchase 90 million kilowatt hours of wind energy and the first of (eventually) 23 Safeways will be decked out with solar panels; all 1,000 trucks in the mainland fleet already run on biodiesel (Pettus’ advice: “Stuck in traffic? Get behind a Safeway truck”). Though Fortune 100 companies aren’t synonymous with “green business,” Pettus says, “We’re all on the same planet, aren’t we? We all own this obligation.”'

WEB EXCLUSIVE

So you’re already supporting Safeway’s greening initiatives (for more info, go to safeway.com, click on “going green” under “about us”) by shopping at your local branch. Now, why not find out what other big corporations are making an effort to go a little greener (and support them too)? You can find a full list of all participating members of the Chicago Climate Exchange—from such companies as Ford Motor Company and Intel to such universities as Michigan State to such municipalities as (who’d have guessed?) Berkeley—at the organization’s website.

If you run a company, why not find out how yours measures up? Make like Safeway and join the California Climate Registry, a voluntary nonprofit that measures emissions and helps companies prepare to comply with new regulations. Oh, and Safeway also made the EPA’s list of top consumers of green energy—look to find out who else is on the list.