BOCA RATON, Fla., May 10, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Office Depot (NYSE:ODP), a leading global provider of office products and services, today further established itself as an environmental leader by undertaking a new commitment to protect the environment by becoming an ENERGY STAR Commercial Buildings Partner, a program established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Through this partnership with the EPA, Office Depot will continue to work to improve energy efficiency in the Company's retail stores, and commits to track its energy consumption at each individual location using ENERGY STAR tools to score performance.
This new partnership with the EPA is just one more example of Office Depot's environmental strategy to increasingly buy green, be green and sell green.
Office Depot offers its customers an assortment of ENERGY STAR qualified technology products available in its retail stores, online at www.officedepot.com/greeneroffice, and in The Green Book, a catalog of environmentally-preferable products. Additionally, through the Company's commitment to increasingly be green, Office Depot is building more environmentally sustainable facilities featuring ENERGY STAR rated equipment, including its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certified store in Austin, TX and a number of new LEED Commercial Interior (CI) retail store locations.
"Carbon reduction starts with energy reduction," said Yalmaz Siddiqui, Director of Environmental Strategy for Office Depot. "The ENERGY STAR program has been at the forefront of this effort for years. We're proud to add the ENERGY STAR Commercial Buildings Partnership to the portfolio of EPA programs we already participate in, including Smartway, Climate Leaders and Energy Star for Retail." In partnership with ENERGY STAR, Office Depot has committed to: -- Measure and track the energy performance of its stores by using tools such as those offered through ENERGY STAR; -- Develop and implement a plan consistent with the ENERGY STAR Energy Management Guidelines to achieve energy savings; -- Help spread the word about the importance of energy efficiency to its associates and community; -- Support the ENERGY STAR Challenge, a national call-to-action to help improve the energy efficiency of America's commercial and industrial buildings by 10 percent or more; and -- Highlight its achievements with recognition offered through ENERGY STAR.
"ENERGY STAR partners such as Office Depot are leading the fight against global warming by improving the efficiency of their buildings and facilities," said Jean Lupinacci, Chief of EPA's ENERGY STAR Commercial and Industrial Branch. "We applaud these efforts to help protect our global environment for generations to come." "The ENERGY STAR rating system will help Office Depot ensure that each of our retail store locations is running as energy efficient as possible," said Edward Costa, Vice President of Construction for Office Depot. "While we have been tracking the electricity usage in our facilities for a number of years now, the ENERGY STAR program will help validate our efficiencies at the individual store level by affirming those locations that are successfully lowering energy use and help us ensure that all stores are meeting our goals." ENERGY STAR was introduced by EPA in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency. Today, the ENERGY STAR label can be found on more than 60 different kinds of products, new homes, and commercial and industrial buildings. Products and buildings that have earned the ENERGY STAR designation prevent greenhouse gas emissions by meeting strict energy-efficiency specifications set by the government. Last year alone, Americans, with the help of ENERGY STAR, saved about $19 billion on their energy bills while reducing the greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of 29 million vehicles.
For more information about ENERGY STAR, visit www.energystar.gov or call toll-free 1-888-STAR-YES.
Information on Office Depot's global environmental strategy can be found at http://www.officedepot.com/environment.
For more information about Office Depot's overall environmental initiatives, visit http://socialpressofficedepot.com/environmental-initiatives/.
You can also find Office Depot on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/OfficeDepot and Twitter at http://twitter.com/officedepot.
About Office Depot Every day, Office Depot is Taking Care of Business for millions of customers around the globe. For the local corner store as well as Fortune 500 companies, Office Depot provides products and services to its customers through 1,587 worldwide retail stores, a dedicated sales force, top-rated catalogs and a $4.2 billion e-commerce operation. Office Depot has annual sales of approximately $12.1 billion, and employs about 41,000 associates around the world. The Company provides more office products and services to more customers in more countries than any other company, and currently sells to customers directly or through affiliates in 52 countries.
Office Depot's common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ODP and is included in the S&P 500 Index. Additional press information can be found at: http://mediarelations.officedepot.com. Media materials specific to Office Depot's environmental initiatives can be found at http://socialpressofficedepot.com/environmental-initiatives/.
SOURCE: Office Depot CONTACT: Office Depot, Boca Raton Melissa Perlman, 561-438-0704 Melissa.Perlman@officedepot.com Copyright Business Wire 2010 -0- KEYWORD: United States
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