The first one I noticed was Best Buy, then Staples and Office Depot very quickly were saying they would build stores to LEED standards. What great news. Retail may not be the worst contributors to energy consumption, or CO2 emissions but their efforts will be very visible and get good publicity for the causes of green building and energy efficiency.
Then I noticed a story that Kohl's would be putting rooftop solar PV on 63 or its 80 California stores. Hey what about NC and the other 754 stores they run? Next I read that JC Penny is about to open a store in Denver in a LEED certified shopping center development and that they will seek LEED certification for two more stores opening over the next two years.
All great news. So it seems the new LEED for Retail program is working well. The program consists
of two rating systems - new construction and major renovations version 2.2 plus LEED for commercial interiors 2.0. It's still in pilot but the 2nd draft of the program was issued this past April.
On a related note, I came across a study on the City of Seattle website which shows that stores with increased daylighting, not only save energy costs, but enjoyed increased sales - 30% or more $/square foot improvement in fact. I found that interesting since I've heard retailers say they must have certain types of electric lighting to showcase their wares effectively and achieve better sales.
More anecdotally, I've heard of a few smaller retailers putting up solar hot water around NC, so it must be going on a lot. After all it's practically a no-brainer given the accelerated depreciation and uncapped tax credits available to commercial applications of solar, and the fairly rapid payback period for solar thermal.
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