Office Depot launches major green store initiative

Boca Raton, Fla. Office Depot Monday 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.

LEED CI is the recognized system for certifying high-performance green interiors that are healthy, productive places to work; are less costly to operate and maintain; and have a reduced environmental footprint.

Fourteen new Office Depot store locations will be LEED CI certified, starting with the chain’s newest location in Austin, Texas, which is scheduled to open in June. At each of these locations, Office Depot will look to mirror the impressive energy and monetary savings seen at Office Depot’s first LEED Gold-Certified store in Austin, 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, VP 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.”

Features of all new Office Depot LEED CI certified stores will include:

• Skylights (where applicable) will be used to harvest daylight for 90% of the store.
• A 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.
• An energy-management system that allows tracking of energy usage and trends from one central location.