Staff report
Food Lion LLC and the city of Salisbury will be honored for their environmental efforts at a special reception and dinner Monday in conjunction with the Third International Hydrail Conference.
The North Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club will name Salisbury as its newest “Cool City.”
Food Lion will be recognized for its work in energy conservation, recycling and the sustainable features included in the design and construction of its new Customer Support Center on Harrison Road.
Food Lion will host a reception at 6:30 p.m. in Founders Hall of the new “green” Customer Support Center. A dinner for attendees of the Hydrail Conference, hosted by the Center for the Environment of Catawba College, will follow.
Special guests for the dinner include N.C. Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources Bill Ross, Salisbury Mayor Susan Kluttz and Environmental Protection Agency representative Linda Rimer.
All other Salisbury City Council members also have been invited.
Overall sponsors for the evening are the Catawba College Center for the Environment, Food Lion and the Salisbury Post.
“Salisbury is a model for mid-sized communities across North Carolina when it comes to caring for the environment,” said Tom Jensen, cool cities director for the N.C. Sierra Club.
“We are thrilled with the mayor’s leadership on this critical issue and hope that it will serve as a model for other communities in the region,” Jensen said.
Mayor Susan Kluttz will receive a plaque designating Salisbury as a “Cool City” by former national Sierra Club President Chuck McGrady, who is a Henderson County Commissioner.
Salisbury will be one of 19 Cool Cities in North Carolina.
The Cool Cities program is based on local mayors signing the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, which asks cities to commit to three major things:
– Work toward a 7 percent reduction from 1990 greenhouse gas emission levels by 2012;
– Reach those goals through actions ranging from anti-sprawl and land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns;
– Urge the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system.
The City Council unanimously approved the agreement early this spring.
Food Lion’s new 125,000-square-foot Customer Support Center includes office space housing up to 455 employees.
It relies on water-reduction technologies, natural lighting from windows and skylights and an automation system that controls heating and air-conditioning and the fluorescent lighting systems.
During the $26 million construction project, all debris and unused construction materials were collected and recycled.