Environmental sustainability in distribution center facilities is a growing trend, according to Bob Shaunnessey, executive director of the Warehousing Education and Research Council, which recently released its 2007 Facilities Trends Report.
 
In the spirit of Earth Day -Tuesday, April 22 -some of the changes distribution and manufacturing companies are making: recycling more materials, switching out bathroom facilities to use less water per flush, using less packaging to ship their products and asking suppliers to use less packaging so there is less waste. They are putting in more energy-efficient lighting, and installing motion sensors so that when no one is in a particular area, the lights stay off.
 
I think ‘the right thing to do’ set the stage for the changes, but the thing that gets it done is that it is a way to save money,” Shaunnessey says.
 
Distributors have seen the same motivation among customers. In a recent MDM feature (Helping Customers Go Green, March 25, 2008), Mike Lindner of Portland, OR-based Eoff Electric Supply said that its customers must be sold on the payback they will get from environmentally-friendly products and changes. “They want to be green,” he says. “But the reality is, in the end it does come back to the bottom line.”
 
Other distributors -big and small -have jumped into the ring as well. HD Supply Facilities Maintenance launched its “ideallygreen” sustainability initiative in 2007 with the goal of providing earth-friendly products to its customers and educating its associates about green practices.
 
MSC Industrial Direct, Melville, NY, will soon be launching a new section of its Web site dedicated to eco-friendly products; one of its new private labels is an environmentally-friendly cleaning line aptly called Nature’s Solution -highlighting demand not only for energy-efficient products but also for effective eco-friendly cleaning solutions.
 
As energy costs go up, distributors have and are taking the opportunity to create demand for products that will help customers save money.
 
Still, it won’t be long before green products and practices will become the norm and will no longer be a clear competitive advantage. Sonepar USA CEO Tony Burr recently told MDM that the key to growing through green is to get in at the ground level because it will not be a high-growth area forever. “In five years we won’t be talking about this -this is going to be the way it will be. … It’s like e-commerce. You have got to be there at the starting point.”
 
Burr made another point during our discussion of green -it’s important to keep looking forward to the next growth opportunity. He says of Sonepar: “We are getting ourselves structured to deal with new marketplaces, customer sectors and products that might emerge.”
 
(Order the WERC report on facilities trends here.)