Adobe

By Paul Mathew

Corporate Initiatives & Goals

Adobe’s 2013 Corporate Responsibility report states that: "Every year we strive to outdo ourselves in operating sustainably. We aim to make our sites as green as possible, offsetting our carbon emissions and generating our own energy at key locations. Additionally, our products allow our customers to live greener through products like EchoSign and Creative Cloud."

Adobe has a Sustainability Policy Statement that includes goals for energy, water, waste, materials, products, education.

Their Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR) brief from 2012 states that they have three high level goals:

• • Achieve Net Zero energy consumption by 2015 in owned facilities in the United States

  • Reduce the amount of product packaging used per unit by 40 percent by 2012, and 80 percent by 2014

  • Expand the employee-led Green Team to all of our 12 major sites globally by 2015

Adobe clearly has aggressive and multi-year sustained enterprise-wide efforts for sustainability. In Newsweek’s 2014 Green Rankings, Adobe was named the second greenest company in the United States and third greenest in the world, after Vivendi and Allergan. In the category of IT companies, Adobe tops the list both in the U.S. and globally. It has a CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) score of 99. Adobe was the first company to earn LEED-EB Platinum Certification in June 2006 and has continued certification resulting in over 70% of its entire workspaces being LEED certified. In terms of carbon emissions reductions, Adobe has directly reduced and/or avoided its Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions through sustainability initiatives for its owned and managed buildings in the United States by 51%, and through purchase of RECs and VERs (Verified Energy Reductions), they have offset their total Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 100%.

Since 2002, Adobe's nine owned North American facilities we’ve completed more than 180 energy efficiency projects that have reduced electricity usage by 50 percent, natural gas usage by 30 percent, domestic water usage by 79 percent, and irrigation water usage by 71 percent. They have developed and implemented a monitoring and energy analytics system that captures energy and critical operations data based on thousands of data points, from electricity, water, and natural gas usage to the power usage effectiveness (PUE) of all Adobe data centers. In their San Jose, California, headquarters they collect energy usage and critical operations information for more than 30,000 data points. Many end uses are sub-metered, including data centers, HVAC, lighting, kitchen loads. They worked closely with their Energy Information System (EIS) vendor to develop and configure the EIS to meet their requirements.

Beyond energy-related sustainability efforts, Adobe employs an aggressive waste diversion policy in all of its owned and controlled buildings. Currently, this initiative has resulted in Adobe facilities diverting 97% of its waste overall within the US. It actively collaborates in USGBC’s Building Health Initiative, Net Zero buildings and BSR’s Future of Internet Power (BSR-FOIP). Adobe also participates in a 25-company initiative championed by the World WIldlife Fund and World Resources Institute to promote Corporate Renewable Energy Buyer's Principles, setting aggressive renewable energy goals, addressing barriers, and collaborating to drive change in policy.

Flagship Project: Adobe Corporate Headquarters

• Project type: retrofit

• Address: 345 Park Avenue San Jose, CA 95110-2704 [Map]

• Number of buildings: 3

• Floor area: 939,358 square feet of office space; 938,473 square feet of semi-enclosed parking garage

• Occupants: 2,300 employees, including consultants and temporary workers

• Site: N/a acres

• Walk Score: 86/100*

• Summary Table

Extensive improvements to this existing Headquarters facility achieved LEED-EB platinum certification in 2006 (Figure 1). In working towards LEED certification, Adobe implemented over 64 energy and energy-related conservation projects at a cost of $1.4 million with an annual cost savings of $1.2 million – equating to an ROI of 121 percent and an average payback per project of 9.5 months. Adobe's LEED-EB Platinum certification efforts, specifically, have had a net ROI of 148 percent while the costs of certification are just 10 percent of one year's savings. In its most recent Portfolio Manager update (2013), the building scored 82 (ranging from 75 to 100 over the years).

As a result, they achieved the following resource-use reductions:

• • electricity use: 35%

  • natural gas: 41%

  • domestic water use: 22%

  • irrigation water use: 76%

Figure 1: The Adobe Corporate headquarters consists of three buildings in

San Jose, California, all of which are ENERGY STAR certified.

Selected measures include:

• Occupancy control of HVAC for 201 conference and meeting rooms. Occupancy controlled stairwell lighting.

• Retrofitting variable frequency drives for main supply fans in the West Tower resulted in annual savings of approximately $47,000.

• Installing variable frequency drives (VFD) on the primary chiller in Adobe’s West Tower resulted in savings totaling approximately $39,000.

• Labor to reduce operating times on garage supply fans cost a total of just $100. This modification in the fans’ programming resulted in savings of approximately $67,000 per year – with no compromise to air quality.

• Real-time, digital electric meters and enhanced graphic data analysis software closely monitor electricity use and measure savings realized from the various electricity-conserving projects undertaken by Adobe. This monitoring system has allowed Adobe to identify and correct programming errors and other inefficiencies that might otherwise have gone undiscovered, resulting in annual savings of approximately $96,000.

• Adobe has also installed 12 100 kW Fuel Cells by Bloom Energy on its 5th floor parking garage (Figure 2). The fuel cells deliver about 30% of the electricity used at Adobe’s headquarters. Adobe purchases RECs (Renewable Energy Certificates) to balance the CO2 generated by the fuel cells and achieve carbon neutrality.

• 20 vertical axis wind turbines (called “Windspires”) on the 6th floor patio generate clean energy from the natural wind tunnel configuration of the towers (Figure 3).

• Adobe provides free Caltrain passes to its employees and monthly vouchers for other transit systems. Bicycle commuting is encouraged by providing weather-sheltered bicycle racks, with gear lockers and showers at each building. Electric vehicle charging stations are available for guests and employees free of cost. As a result of these measures, 24% of the total Adobe population commutes on public transit (compared to 4% average for the surrounding county of Santa Clara).

• Adobe diverts up to 95 percent of its waste from landfill projects. Computer equipment, batteries, printer toner, fluorescent lamps and ballasts are among office waste items recycled; kitchen grease and cafeteria waste are composted.

• All janitorial products satisfy the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Cleaning Stewardship for Community Building Standards and meet the Green Seal Cleaning Products Standards.

• Water use has been reduced by 30 percent overall, and by 76 percent in landscaping. Run times of outdoor fountains have been reduced from 119 to 60 hours a week. Adobe was the first company in Santa Clara County to obtain a permit for installing waterless urinals. Landscape plants were specifically selected for the local climate zone; they are low-maintenance and drought-tolerant. Watering is by subsurface drip irrigation, turned on and off by eT-controllers which automatically adjust watering rates according to air temperature, precipitation, wind and humidity – factors all transmitted by wireless technology from local weather stations.

Figure 2: Adobe has installed 12 100 kW Fuel Cells by Bloom Energy on its 5th floor parking garage.

The fuel cells deliver about 30% of the electricity used at Adobe’s headquarters.

Figure 3: There are 20 vertical axis wind turbines on the 6th floor patio.

Documentation

America's Greenest companies, Newsweek Website - http://www.newsweek.com/green/top-10-green-companies-world

Corporate Responsibility Website - http://www.adobe.com/corporate-responsibility/environment.html

Energy Star profile for Adobe Headquarters - http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=labeled_buildings.showProfile&profile_id=1002791

Sustainability policy statement - http://www.adobe.com/corporate-responsibility/sustainability.html

Video tour of LEED-certified headquarters - http://greenmonk.net/2009/03/25/tour-of-adobes-triple-platinum-leed-certified-hq/

World Wildlife Fund and World Resources Institute, Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers’ Principles http://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/powering-businesses-on-renewable-energy