7-Eleven, Inc. has opened a green Commissary and Combined Distribution Center (CCD) in Long Island, New York as their company’s green steps. Fresh foods are prepared at the new environmentally-friendly facility and delivered to 674 7-Eleven stores in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

The 130,000 square-foot high-tech center includes features to conserve energy, water usage, and utility costs. In addition, a sophisticated inventory and computerized ordering system allows sandwiches, salads, and baked goods to be efficiently prepared on the same day they are ordered.

The CCD qualified for rate incentives and gas efficiency rebates from the National Grid, the local utility.

More information is available here.

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The company plans to:

• Replace about 8,000 gasoline-powered vehicles with vehicles powered by Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) over the next five years. This is the largest U.S. corporate commitment to CNG vehicles to date.

• Replace 7,100 passenger cars with alternative-fuel models over the next 10 years.

According to AT&T, the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, Mich., estimates that over the 10-year deployment period, the new vehicles will save 49 million gallons of gasoline and reduce carbon emissions by 211,000 metric tons. That is equivalent to removing the emissions from more than 38,600 traditional passenger vehicles for a year. What a green step!

You can learn more by watching this short video clip:

These products include Method’s liquid dish soap, hand wash, and foaming hand wash. The company is in the process of certifying another 20  products.

C2C certification involves a thorough evaluation of a product’s ingredients, manufacturing, and packaging. Key components of C2C certification include the use of: healthy and environmentally safe materials,renewable energy, and corporate practices that promote social responsibility.

“Method is committed to making products and packaging that are green to the core, like our business,” says Adam Lowry, Method co-founder and chief greenskeeper.“Obtaining third party verification from the people who literally wrote the book on cradle to cradle design reinforces the work that we’re doing, and it tells consumers that in a category filled with green noise, Method is a company they can trust.”

For more details about the explained green steps and the company’s overall sustainability platform, visit their website.

“Method welcomes investigation and scrutiny of our products and our business practices,” Lowry concludes. “We encourage consumers to examine not only what a company puts on the shelf, but what it does behind closed doors. At Method, we believe a green product can only come from a truly green company.”

But, that tradition will end this year because Heinz has redesigned its ketchup bottle label to feature a tomato, instead of the pickle. The new tomato imagery is designed to emphasize the company’s commitment to tomato quality.

According to a press release, Heinz’s new label will also include the words “Grown not made,” a tagline that stresses the company’s dedication to tomatoes grown by a select group of farmers. Because Heinz has such strict control of its supply chain as their green steps, the company says it can track each tomato in its ketchup “from seed to vine to bottle.”

So, why was there a pickle on the ketchup label in the first place?

Turns out that H. J. Heinz used a “pickle pin” to attract customers to his ketchup booth at the Chicago World’s Fair back in 1893. The pin became so popular that Heinz decided to incorporate it into the ketchup label.

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UPS has added 300 “green” trucks to its delivery fleets in seven cities in Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma, and California as their green steps. These new trucks are powered by compressed natural gas (CNG).

UPS already operates the largest private fleet of alternative fuel vehicles in its industry. The company’s 1,819 alternative fuel fleet includes vehicles powered by CNG, liquified natural gas, propane, electric and hybrid electric in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Brazil, Chile, Korea, and the United Kingdom.

“Deploying alternative fuel vehicles dates back to the early days of UPS and this CNG deployment is one more step towards the greening of our fleet,” says Robert Hall, UPS’s director of vehicle engineering. “Continuing to add CNG delivery trucks to our fleet is a sustainable choice because natural gas is a cost effective, clean-burning and readily available fuel.” C’mon! Do green steps, UPS!

The new box:

• uses 8% less material
• packages the same amount of cereal
• saves space on store shelves and home pantries
• could help Kellogg cut costs and reduce its carbon footprint

The company will be testing the new box design in the Detroit area over the next six months.

More green packaging news is available here.

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