Levi Strauss & Co. made another move toward the company’s goals of environmental sustainability when they secured the LEED Platinum rating for the Sky Harbor distribution center in Nevada.
This distribution center is the first retrofitted warehouse in the apparel industry to receive the Platinum rating, which is the highest LEED rating, with fewer than 7 percent of the nearly 70,000 commercial LEED buildings achieving Platinum status.
Overall, Levi’s distribution centers create about 40 percent of the company’s carbon footprint, so they are an important area to target. The Sky Harbor distribution center’s operations team began working toward LEED certification in 2010 by improving energy and water efficiency.
To upgrade the building, the team built a reflective white roof, which keeps the facility colder in the summer, alleviating the need for intense air conditioning. They also implemented recycling and composting to divert more than 90 percent of the building’s waste from the landfill and switched to LED lighting and power-saving motion-sensor lights.
The facility also received official Energy Star Building certification, which indicates that the building now operates at a level of energy efficiency in the top 20 percent of all warehouses in the United States.
The distribution center will save about $60,000 per year for the next ten years with water savings, energy efficiency upgrades and tax abatement from the state of Nevada.
