Childhood Memories Lead to Career-long Conservation at Safeway

Victor Munoz, ‎corporate director of energy utilization, brings to Safeway a long history of sustainable living. His family owned a restaurant serving local foods in the 1960s, and they spent weekends on California’s Sonoma County beaches where his parents taught him to respect the earth and leave no trace behind.

His upbringing led him to a career where he gets to educate colleagues about energy and water conservation best practices, helping to ensure that future generations can also grow up appreciating the planet’s natural beauty.

“Helping Safeway create and implement actionable conservation practices has been a tremendously rewarding responsibility,” he says. “Sustainability is being achieved across many different parts of the company, through the efforts of all our employees in various levels of the organization.”

Many of the changes Victor talks about are not visible to the customer — yet they make a major impact.

For example, our lighting systems have undergone significant improvements as more efficient technologies have allowed Safeway stores to move away from traditional lighting systems to LED equivalents. In fact, the LED retrofits that we carried out in 2013 save over 12 million kilowatt hours every year. That’s enough electricity to power over 1,100 homes for a year!

Victor and his team continuously review existing and emerging technologies and operational processes to reduce electricity, natural gas and water use in our stores. He also has succeeded at improving employee awareness and participation in conservation efforts.

Learn more about Safeway’s efforts to reduce energy and greenhouse gas emissions. Join the Facebook and Twitter conversation by using the #HeartOfSafeway hashtag.