Office Depot Earns LEED Certification

Office Depot has announced that its green retail store prototype has received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

Office Depot received the Gold rating for the company’s store prototype as well as for its first green retail store in Austin, Texas, which opened during the summer of 2008. The Office Depot Austin store was the first location the company constructed following its environmentally preferable prototype design or master set of drawings.

Office Depot’s LEED-certified store and prototype incorporate a number of green building features, including:

• 83 percent of the generated construction waste has been diverted from landfill and 25 percent of the total materials cost is made up of recycled content.
• A recycling program for collection of corrugated cardboard, paper, plastics, ink/toner cartridges and technology
• 37 percent energy cost savings compared to code.
• Photovoltaic solar panels that offset 11 percent of the building’s total annual energy costs.

“Buildings contribute to more than 40 percent of global carbon emissions,” says Yalmaz Siddiqui, director of environmental strategy for Office Depot. “By obtaining LEED Gold certification for our store prototype, we have embedded low-carbon principles into our most material source of carbon, our retail stores. We are very proud of this accomplishment and the commitment demonstrated by Office Depot’s construction team. We are excited to continue to lead the office products industry with our global environmental strategy to increasingly buy green, be green and sell green.”