Natural Environment

Facility Energy Management

With nearly 1,000 retail stores within our U.S. Operations, OfficeMax has identified better facility energy management as a way to significantly reduce our carbon footprint, overall environmental impact and energy costs.

Award-Winning Energy Management Initiative Helps Reduce CO₂ Emissions by Nearly 9 Percent

In 2006, the OfficeMax Strategic Sourcing Group undertook a major effort to achieve a guaranteed reduction in energy consumption at our retail stores, while outsourcing heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) services to a third-party contractor.

By early 2007, OfficeMax and our chosen third-party energy management group had put in place an energy management system (EMS) at all stores in our U.S. Operations, making OfficeMax one of the first retailers in the United States to do so. The EMS gives our vendor centralized, around-the-clock monitoring and control of the HVAC and lighting systems at our stores. Despite opening a net 65 new stores, the EMS and other aspects of the initiative (as described below) helped reduced the amount of electricity we used by 7 percent from 2006 to 2007. This contributed greatly to our nearly 9 percent decrease in CO₂ emissions, which was also aided by changes in our transportation operations.

Our energy management initiative effort helped OfficeMax earn “Best of Category” honors in the 2007 Energy Users Excellence Awards for Demand Management. The awards, bestowed annually by the Utility Planning Network, recognizes commercial, industrial and institutional energy users for excellence in energy management and energy cost control. Some of the highlights of this initiative include the following:

• EMS monitoring and re-commissioning to make sure that all stores meet corporate guidelines for space temperatures and hours of occupancy, and that the systems are functioning as designed. Today virtually all of our stores meet the corporate guidelines, up from only 8 percent of our stores prior to the initiative.
• Outsourced HVAC services to properly perform preventive maintenance critical to saving energy.
• New construction prototype building envelope audit to identify value engineering ideas that will improve energy efficiency and save a projected $2.5 million in capital and future energy costs.
• Rebate management to ensure all projects are considered for utility company rebates.
• Lighting management to maintain a re-lamping program and evaluate retrofit opportunities.
• Outlier review to identify by region, on a quarterly basis, those stores using more than the average energy usage and evaluate solutions.
• Utility information and bill accuracy to audit all bills for payment accuracy and acquire the necessary energy information to support future analysis.
• Store management to educate store managers on the importance of saving energy and providing them with best practices.

We are currently reviewing opportunities for implementing the EMS at our distribution facilities, as well.

Multi-Million Dollar Retrofit Project gets “Green Light” for 2008

In 2007, our Strategic Sourcing, Store Operations and Corporate Management functions partnered to develop and approve a $2 million project that will replace the current T-12 fluorescent lamps and existing ballasts with energy-efficient T-8 fluorescent lamps and state-of-the-art electronic ballasts at 100 of the stores in our U.S. Operations. Besides being more efficient, T-8 lamps last longer than T-12s, thus helping to reduce maintenance costs associated with replacing lamps. T-8 lamps also feature a quality of light that is warmer and more pleasant to the eyes than T-12s, heightening the atmosphere for our customers and associates.

This project is expected to keep more than 14,000 metric tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere and save the company $2 million annually in energy costs alone (maintenance-cost reductions are not included in the estimated annual cost savings).