Two major players in the electronics industry announced plans to make their operations greener.
Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) plans to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 8% per square foot across all U.S. stores and operations, including its corporate headquarters, fleet and distribution centers, by 2012.
Best Buy intends to measure emissions on a per square footage basis to account for improvement while maintaining company growth initiatives. A recent nationwide inventory indicates that U.S. operations and stores emit approximately 62 pounds of GHG annually per square foot. Electricity use represents 77% of the emissions, followed by heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) at 13%; gas for fleet and service vehicles at 5%, and diesel for fleet vehicles and natural gas at 2% each.
Best Buy has outlined specific steps designed to help reach its reduction target, including: new stores built with high efficiency lighting and HVAC systems, and skylights; addition of skylights and upgrades of lighting and HVAC systems in existing stores and operations; implementation of a no-idling policy nationwide for all fleet; upgrades and networking of the centralized Energy Management System to better track energy spikes across stores and operations; and tests of renewable energy sources, including solar panels on select stores.
HP (NYSE:HPQ) announced a goal to double the company’s global purchases of renewable power from under 4% in 2008 to 8% by 2012.
This is in addition to HP’s goal to reduce energy consumption and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions from HP-owned and HP-leased facilities worldwide to 16% below 2005 levels by 2010.
In 2007, HP successfully met its goal to increase renewable energy purchases by more than 350% and purchased 61.4 million kilowatt hours (kwh) of renewable energy and renewable energy credits in the United States.
"HP is investing in technologies that bring us closer to operating in a sustainable IT ecosystem," said John Frey, senior sustainability executive, HP. "We are supporting renewable energy programs for our own operational efficiency, harnessing research to demonstrate environmental leadership and offering products that support customer concerns about rising energy costs."
HP recently completed a 1.1-megawatt, 6,256 solar panel system at its facility in San Diego. This is one of the largest solar power installations in the County of San Diego and is projected to save the company $750,000 during the next 15 years while providing more than 10 percent of the facility’s power. Further, the system will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 60 million pounds over the next 30 years. This is equivalent to providing electricity to 3,800 homes or removing more than 5,250 cars from the road over this time period.
SunPower (Nasdaq: SPWRA, SPWRB) installed the system and GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of GE (NYSE: GE) that owns the system under SunPower Access, will provide the electricity under a power purchase agreement.
Loading...