Sustainability initiatives exist in nearly every industry, and many companies, like HD Supply, have branded their programs. Developing a sustainability program not only benefits the environment, but it brings awareness to our customers of what actions we are taking to be more green and provides solutions to reduce your own environmental footprint. Our ideallygreen^SM initiative, which includes green products and practices, has helped our customers save billions of gallons of water and millions of dollars in electricity costs, and has made our company more efficient in our own use of resources (electricity, water, natural gas, etc.).

We’ve talked about how increasing the sustainability of your operations not only reduces your environmental impact, it also makes financial sense. From greening your maintenance plan to replacing inefficient lights with LEDs, slight upgrades to your operations will save you money. Today let’s discuss something often overlooked—your roof—and how you can save even more on your energy costs.

Earth Day is right around the corner (Sunday!) and, to celebrate, HD Supply planned various activities this week surrounding the theme of conservation. The Sustainability Department put together an interactive event each day that our associates are participating in to reduce their environmental impact and our carbon footprint. I hope this sparks some ideas for your property to try, and even implement, this year!

Summer is around the corner, and for some of us that means it’s time to turn on the air conditioning or just sit in an uncomfortably warm house or building. We have spoken a few times about weatherization to avoid wasting money on leaky windows and doors and other green maintenance plans to help make sure that your systems are running efficiently. Sometimes it takes more than that to keep a property cool, though.

The Sustainability Department is excited that our new full-line Catalog V62 is currently en route to customers.

A couple of weeks ago Associate Manager of Sustainability Kelly Thompson discussed changes happening in the lighting world as a result of efficient lighting legislation. Today, I’ll go over some changes occurring in the ENERGY STAR® program that impact dishwashers, and another week I’ll discuss room air conditioners.

Property owners and managers should be proactive with their maintenance plan. Its primary purpose is to prevent minor repairs from growing into expensive major repairs, so developing a plan is important. Preventive maintenance can range from cleaning the coils of your air conditioner to sealing parking lot cracks. Whatever is on your list of repairs, the benefits of property maintenance include:

About six months ago, in response to a bunch of good questions about our blog post “Showerhead Part 2: Does Low-Flow Increase Shower Time?” I persuaded five of my colleagues to conduct an unscientific trial of various showerheads to see whether low-flow showerheads require longer shower times, and, if so, whether that would negate the water-saving.

Do you currently purchase T12 bulbs for your property? Well, legislation was recently passed that could discontinue the production of them and many others soon.

As I have said in this blog a few times, water is a precious resource that I believe is undervalued in our society. It has been a mission of our Sustainability Department at HD Supply to provide useful tools and incentives (like our “Water You Doing” campaign) to help our customers conserve water and reduce their utility costs. Through the sale of water conservation products in 2011 I conservatively estimate that we have helped our customers save around 1 billion gallons of water!