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Our corporate efforts to curb energy consumption at our retail locations began in 2006, through a partnership with ENERGY STAR. We were looking for a way to benchmark our retail locations—to see how they were performing, how they compared to other Verizon stores and how we compared to the retail industry overall. Over the past few years, we’ve seen an annual 5 percent average reduction in energy consumption at our retail stores.
Building energy-efficient stores
We used ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager®—the Environmental Protection Agency’s online measurement and tracking solution for energy conservation—to gauge our energy usage and rate each retail location’s energy performance on a scale of 1–100 in order to identify high-performing stores.
“The utility team was looking for a benchmarking tool to help with energy management, and ENERGY STAR and Portfolio Manager provided us with some great tools and resources to do so,” says Raella Frazier, Manager–Real Estate Operations at Verizon Wireless. “This helps us reach our corporate greenhouse gas emissions goals and reduces our carbon intensity.”
We upgraded our HVAC equipment, installed LED lighting and worked with our landlords to reduce costs on shared lighting. We continue to seek input from our design and construction teams in our quest to continue building energy-efficient stores.
ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year
As a result of our corporate efforts, Verizon was named ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year for 2013 and 2014. Currently, ENERGY STAR has certified 100 percent of our eligible stores—more than 140 of them.
Looking Ahead: Our Pledge to Change the World
When Pam Loomis, Senior Analyst–Real Estate Operations, purchased her energy-efficient home, she got a nice a perk for her sustainability efforts—her electric bill dropped from $300 a month to $15. Like Pam, many of our employees take energy conservation to heart, which may help to explain the success of our collaboration with the ENERGY STAR program.
We’re focused on educating our employees and customers on ways to save energy, reduce our carbon footprint, and participate in ENERGY STAR Battle of the Buildings and Change the World programs.
We’re an active participant in Battle of the Buildings, a national competition sponsored by ENERGY STAR that pits buildings across the nation against each other in a battle to see who can trim the most energy waste. Four Verizon stores participated in 2012. In 2014, 38 stores joined the competition.
In 2014, we made our Change the World pledge to eliminate 5.2 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. We encourage our employees and customers to visit Change the World’s site to learn more about energy conservation and to make their own pledge, such as switching to energy-efficient light bulbs and appliances.
