2Sustain

Yesterday, Office Depot announced that it will pursue Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Commercial Interiors (CI) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for all new Office Depot retail stores, beginning in June 2010.

LEED CI is the recognized system for certifying high-performance green interiors that ultimately are:

• healthy, productive places to work,

• less costly to operate and maintain, and

• less damaging to the environment.

The long list of features of all new Office Depot LEED CI certified stores includes:

• Preferred parking designated for low-emitting, fuel efficient vehicles and carpooling.

• Skylights (where applicable) will be used to harvest daylight for 90% of the store.

• Reflective roof which features a membrane that helps to prevent absorption of the heat from the sun and keeps the interior of the store much cooler.

• Energy Star rated HVAC equipment that exceeds ASHRAE standards.
• T5 energy-efficient lighting, which is over 30% more efficient than typical retail lighting and will contribute to over 20% reduction in energy use.
• Daylight and occupancy sensors which reduce energy use.
• Water conservation interior fixtures, including tankless instant hot water heaters, low flush toilets, low flow urinals, and automatic shutoff sensors in restrooms that will use over 30% less water than the typical facility.
• Construction waste that will be recycled when waste recycling is available.
• Construction materials that consist of at least 10% recycled content.
• Wood, 50% of which will come from well-managed forests verified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
• All interior finishes are made up low VOC emitting materials and finishes.
• Green Power purchases supplementing electrical use.
• An Energy Management System that allows tracking of energy usage and trends from one central location.
• 100% Energy Star rated building equipment and appliances.
• Office supplies, technology and furniture featuring a range of green attributes, including recycled content, remanufactured, Energy Star rated and non-toxic.
• An in-store Recycling Center with environmental solutions including Office Depot Ink and Toner Cartridge Recycling, Tech Recycling Service and Cell Phone and Rechargeable Battery Recycling.

Office Depot is already reporting impressive energy and monetary savings at its first LEED Gold-Certified store in Austin, TX, which opened in April 2008.

“The energy savings realized at our first Austin store location has been even greater than what we had originally expected,” said Edward Costa, Vice President of Construction for Office Depot. “We intend to continue to make our stores as energy efficient, water efficient and cost efficient as possible. With LEED CI we are now able to ‘green’ all of our store locations — regardless of whether we build it ourselves or take over an existing building.”

More information about the company’s environmental stewardship and efforts to increasingly “buy green, be green, and sell green” are available at the Office Depot website.