November 5, 2007—Office Depot, global provider of office products and services, recently announced that it has joined the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and will build its first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified retail store in Austin, Texas, in mid-2008. The company is also refining its store prototype specifications and will investigate having the format LEED-certified as well. The LEED Green Building Rating System is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings.
Office Depot has already piloted the green building design concept of “daylight harvesting” in its Greensboro, NC, store. The company says that this concept removes, on average, 250,000 lbs. of carbon and greenhouse gases from the environment each year through high-performance daylighting.
Office Depot reports that it has successfully implemented a number of environmental construction initiatives over the past few years, including the following during 2006:
- Saved nearly 66 million kWh of electricity due to energy efficiency and conservation efforts in North American warehouses and stores;
- Avoided approximately $6.2 million in electricity costs due to energy efficiency and conservation efforts in North American facilities;
- Reduced absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 10.1% across N.A. buildings;
- Retrofitted nearly entire store chain (1,186 stores in North America) to T5 high-output lighting; and
- Rolled out an energy management system upgrade to the majority of stores in an effort to track usage and trends in one central location.
For more information on Office Depot’s environmental initiatives and its vision to increasingly “buy green, be green, and sell green,” visit the company’s Web site.
