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The outdoorsy retailer’s new facility in Lebanon, Tennessee features skylights, solar panels, and some quirky design choices.
Almost by definition, warehouses are boring — spaces of pure industry and function with no aesthetic value.
Boring, though, is not very efficient. The Department of Energy keeps national statistics on warehouses (instead of the more obvious Department of Commerce), largely because it’s the purview of the U.S. Energy Information Administration to keep track of the energy consumption of buildings, and warehouses consume a lot. The transportation sector makes up about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, a number that jumps to 11% when you factor in warehousing-related activities. There is an estimated 4.7 billion square feet of warehouse space in the country already — enough to cover Maine’s Acadia National Park more than twice over — and it’s growing rapidly.
Almost all the $1.1 trillion of U.S. e-commerce sales filters through warehouses at some point in the journey from clicking “purchase” on your screen to a package arriving at your front door. The trucks coming and going with goods from distribution centers spew nitrogen dioxide, which is linked to asthma and is 20% more prevalent on average in the air near industrial parks. Concrete monstrosities that they are, warehouses can even mess with local stormwater drainage due to the acres of ground cover, roads, and loading docks they require. And about a third of the ones in the United States are more than half a century old, meaning they’re not exactly at the state of the art of energy efficiency.
Until very recently, this was mostly an accepted fact. Customers never see the inside of warehouses, meaning there isn’t a lot of external pressure for companies to make them nicer. (Being out of sight and out of mind has also historically allowed them to become sites of rampant exploitation and safety violations.) As Andrew Dempsey, director of climate at outdoor recreation retailer REI Co-op, put it to me, “Folks are not thinking about their warehouses and distribution centers as opportunities for leadership.”
Late last year, REI opened the 10th warehouse in the country to earn a LEED v4 Platinum certification, a designation the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council reserves for projects that go above and beyond sustainability considerations. (Levi Strauss & Co. has one in Nevada, and the National Institute of Health has another in North Carolina, among others.) Located in Lebanon, Tennessee, near important transportation corridors for the business, the new REI warehouse still looks, at least from the outside, a little like the boring designs of the past: At some 400,000 square feet, it’s certainly blocky and large.
“With most of these types of projects, there is always going to be a tension between some of the impact goals you’re looking to achieve and some of the business objectives,” Dempsey added — that is to say, a warehouse still needs to house wares. But, he added, “Under certain constraints, you can get very creative.”
According to the DOE, lighting is one of the biggest energy-sucks in a warehouse. For the Lebanon project, REI partnered with Al. Neyer, a commercial real estate developer with experience designing and constructing LEED-certified buildings, and zeroed in on “design decisions that aren’t overly complex or necessarily bleeding edge,” Dempsey explained. For example, to light the space, the team simply installed 90 skylights, which not only allows in more sun (and thus, reduces the need for lightbulbs), it also helps workers keep an “understanding of the rhythms of the day.” Sensors that turn off lights and conveyor belts when not in use allow the warehouse to run on 30% less energy than code requires.
Solar panels are another common way for warehouses to go greener, and the Lebanon facility has them, too. However, REI also wanted to bring more zero-emission energy to the surrounding community, so it teamed up with Clearloop, a local start-up, to build a supplementary solar project nearby. In addition to keeping the warehouse at its 100% renewable energy goal, the solar facility will also help power several hundred surrounding homes.
Perhaps the biggest challenge REI took on is making the construction process — another traditionally high-emissions part of a building’s lifecycle — zero-waste, which occasionally led to some delightfully woo-woo material decisions. Trees cut down in preparation for construction at the site were recycled for interior design accents like stair barristers. An old barn on the property was likewise deconstructed and its wood repurposed for the warehouse’s atrium space. (The lobby and lounge have the same Restoration Hardware-chic style as many REI retail spaces.)
Many other materials came from “right outside the windows of the building,” Dempsey told me, “which I think is really important to give the folks working there a connection to the history of that land.” Even interior wayfinding elements were made more whimsical: Though there is no way to avoid pouring vast emissions-intensive concrete floors in a warehouse, a polished path on their surface mimics the nearby Cumberland River, and is meant to further blend the indoors with the outdoors.
Stefanie Young, the vice president of technical solutions at the U.S. Green Building Council, who has worked on a number of warehouse projects, told me environmental sustainability is not necessarily the only motivator for companies pursuing LEED certificates. “It’s also about the health and wellness for the occupants: ventilation, access to amenities, the ability to travel to and from the site,” she said, adding, “It might be minimal, but every person that comes into that building is important.”
And while the REI facility is still an oddball in the warehouse space, the advantages of a climate-friendly design are attracting interest from more and more developers. The attention is not necessarily all altruistic: “Clearly, the more efficient the facility is, the less their utility bills will be,” Young pointed out. Owners and developers are also looking for places to meet their ESG or carbon reduction goals, and warehouse upgrades help boost those bona fides. (REI, for example, aims to halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.)
Warehouses will probably never actually be sexy. But it also doesn’t take groundbreaking innovations to make them a little more pleasant — at the end of the day, we’re still just talking about adding some skylights, drought-resistant landscaping, and a few electric forklifts to make them better for both the planet and workers. But these little things matter: “Customers won’t come into this space, but several hundred of our employees will,” Dempsey said. “And that alone merits us to create the best space possible.”
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Though it might not be as comprehensive or as permanent as renewables advocates have feared, it’s also “just the beginning,” the congressman said.
President-elect Donald Trump’s team is drafting an executive order to “halt offshore wind turbine activities” along the East Coast, working with the office of Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, the congressman said in a press release from his office Monday afternoon.
“This executive order is just the beginning,” Van Drew said in a statement. “We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this offshore wind catastrophe from wreaking havoc on the hardworking people who call our coastal towns home.”
The announcement indicates that some in the anti-wind space are leaving open the possibility that Trump’s much-hyped offshore wind ban may be less sweeping than initially suggested.
In its press release, Van Drew’s office said the executive order would “lay the groundwork for permanent measures against the projects,” leaving the door open to only a temporary pause on permitting new projects. The congressman had recently told New Jersey reporters that he anticipates only a six-month moratorium on offshore wind.
The release also stated that the “proposed order” is “expected to be finalized within the first few months of the administration,” which is a far cry from Trump’s promise to stop projects on Day 1. If enacted, a pause would essentially halt all U.S. offshore wind development because the sought-after stretches of national coastline are entirely within federal waters.
Whether this is just caution from Van Drew’s people or a true moderation of Trump’s ambition we’ll soon find out. Inauguration Day is in less than a week.
Imagine for a moment that you’re an aerial firefighter pilot. You have one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, and now you’ve been called in to fight the devastating fires burning in Los Angeles County’s famously tricky, hilly terrain. You’re working long hours — not as long as your colleagues on the ground due to flight time limitations, but the maximum scheduling allows — not to mention the added external pressures you’re also facing. Even the incoming president recently wondered aloud why the fires aren’t under control yet and insinuated that it’s your and your colleagues’ fault.
You’re on a sortie, getting ready for a particularly white-knuckle drop at a low altitude in poor visibility conditions when an object catches your eye outside the cockpit window: an authorized drone dangerously close to your wing.
Aerial firefighters don’t have to imagine this terrifying scenario; they’ve lived it. Last week, a drone punched a hole in the wing of a Québécois “Super Scooper” plane that had traveled down from Canada to fight the fires, grounding Palisades firefighting operations for an agonizing half-hour. Thirty minutes might not seem like much, but it is precious time lost when the Santa Ana winds have already curtailed aerial operations.
“I am shocked by what happened in Los Angeles with the drone,” Anna Lau, a forestry communication coordinator with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, told me. The Montana DNRC has also had to contend with unauthorized drones grounding its firefighting planes. “We’re following what’s going on very closely, and it’s shocking to us,” Lau went on. Leaving the skies clear so that firefighters can get on with their work “just seems like a no-brainer, especially when people are actively trying to tackle the situation at hand and fighting to save homes, property, and lives.”
Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service
Although the Super Scooper collision was by far the most egregious case, according to authorities there have been at least 40 “incidents involving drones” in the airspace around L.A. since the fires started. (Notably, the Federal Aviation Administration has not granted any waivers for the air space around Palisades, meaning any drone images you see of the region, including on the news, were “probably shot illegally,” Intelligencer reports.) So far, law enforcement has arrested three people connected to drones flying near the L.A. fires, and the FBI is seeking information regarding the Super Scooper collision.
Such a problem is hardly isolated to these fires, though. The Forest Service reports that drones led to the suspension of or interfered with at least 172 fire responses between 2015 and 2020. Some people, including Mike Fraietta, an FAA-certified drone pilot and the founder of the drone-detection company Gargoyle Systems, believe the true number of interferences is much higher — closer to 400.
Law enforcement likes to say that unauthorized drone use falls into three buckets — clueless, criminal, or careless — and Fraietta was inclined to believe that it’s mostly the former in L.A. Hobbyists and other casual drone operators “don’t know the regulations or that this is a danger,” he said. “There’s a lot of ignorance.” To raise awareness, he suggested law enforcement and the media highlight the steep penalties for flying drones in wildfire no-fly zones, which is punishable by up to 12 months in prison or a fine of $75,000.
“What we’re seeing, particularly in California, is TikTok and Instagram influencers trying to get a shot and get likes,” Fraietta conjectured. In the case of the drone that hit the Super Scooper, it “might have been a case of citizen journalism, like, Well, I have the ability to get this shot and share what’s going on.”
Emergency management teams are waking up, too. Many technologies are on the horizon for drone detection, identification, and deflection, including Wi-Fi jamming, which was used to ground climate activists’ drones at Heathrow Airport in 2019. Jamming is less practical in an emergency situation like the one in L.A., though, where lives could be at stake if people can’t communicate.
Still, the fact of the matter is that firefighters waste precious time dealing with drones when there are far more pressing issues that need their attention. Lau, in Montana, described how even just a 12-minute interruption to firefighting efforts can put a community at risk. “The biggest public awareness message we put out is, ‘If you fly, we can’t,’” she said.
Fraietta, though, noted that drone technology could be used positively in the future, including on wildfire detection and monitoring, prescribed burns, and communicating with firefighters or victims on the ground.
“We don’t want to see this turn into the FAA saying, ‘Hey everyone, no more drones in the United States because of this incident,’” Fraietta said. “You don’t shut down I-95 because a few people are running drugs up and down it, right? Drones are going to be super beneficial to the country long term.”
But critically, in the case of a wildfire, such tools belong in the right hands — not the hands of your neighbor who got a DJI Mini 3 for Christmas. “Their one shot isn’t worth it,” Lau said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the Québécois firefighting planes are called Super Scoopers, not super soakers.
Plus 3 more outstanding questions about this ongoing emergency.
As Los Angeles continued to battle multiple big blazes ripping through some of the most beloved (and expensive) areas of the city on Friday, a question lingered in the background: What caused the fires in the first place?
Though fires are less common in California during this time of the year, they aren’t unheard of. In early December 2017, power lines sparked the Thomas Fire near Ventura, California, which burned through to mid-January. At the time it was the largest fire in the state since at least the 1930s. Now it’s the ninth-largest. Although that fire was in a more rural area, it ignited for some of the same reasons we’re seeing fires this week.
Read on for everything we know so far about how the fires started.
Six major fires started during the Santa Ana wind event last week:
Officials are investigating the cause of the fires and have not made any public statements yet. Early eyewitness accounts suggest that the Eaton Fire may have started at the base of a transmission tower owned by Southern California Edison. So far, the company has maintained that an analysis of its equipment showed “no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire.” A Washington Post investigation found that the Palisades Fire could have risen from the remnants of a fire that burned on New Year’s Eve and reignited.
On Thursday morning, Edward Nordskog, a retired fire investigator from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, told me it was unlikely they had even begun looking into the root of the biggest and most destructive of the fires in the Pacific Palisades. “They don't start an investigation until it's safe to go into the area where the fire started, and it just hasn't been safe until probably today,” he said.
It can take years to determine the cause of a fire. Investigators did not pinpoint the cause of the Thomas Fire until March 2019, more than two years after it started.
But Nordskog doesn’t think it will take very long this time. It’s easier to narrow down the possibilities for an urban fire because there are typically both witnesses and surveillance footage, he told me. He said the most common causes of wildfires in Los Angeles are power lines and those started by unhoused people. They can also be caused by sparks from vehicles or equipment.
At more than 40,000 acres burned total, these fires are unlikely to make the charts for the largest in California history. But because they are burning in urban, densely populated, and expensive areas, they could be some of the most devastating. With an estimated 9,000 structures damaged as of Friday morning, the Eaton and Palisades fires are likely to make the list for most destructive wildfire events in the state.
And they will certainly be at the top for costliest. The Palisades Fire has already been declared a likely contender for the most expensive wildfire in U.S. history. It has destroyed more than 5,000 structures in some of the most expensive zip codes in the country. Between that and the Eaton Fire, Accuweather estimates the damages could reach $57 billion.
While we don’t know the root causes of the ignitions, several factors came together to create perfect fire conditions in Southern California this week.
First, there’s the Santa Ana winds, an annual phenomenon in Southern California, when very dry, high-pressure air gets trapped in the Great Basin and begins escaping westward through mountain passes to lower-pressure areas along the coast. Most of the time, the wind in Los Angeles blows eastward from the ocean, but during a Santa Ana event, it changes direction, picking up speed as it rushes toward the sea.
Jon Keeley, a research scientist with the US Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of California, Los Angeles told me that Santa Ana winds typically blow at maybe 30 to 40 miles per hour, while the winds this week hit upwards of 60 to 70 miles per hour. “More severe than is normal, but not unique,” he said. “We had similar severe winds in 2017 with the Thomas Fire.”
Second, Southern California is currently in the midst of extreme drought. Winter is typically a rainier season, but Los Angeles has seen less than half an inch of rain since July. That means that all the shrubland vegetation in the area is bone-dry. Again, Keeley said, this was not usual, but not unique. Some years are drier than others.
These fires were also not a question of fuel management, Keeley told me. “The fuels are not really the issue in these big fires. It's the extreme winds,” he said. “You can do prescription burning in chaparral and have essentially no impact on Santa Ana wind-driven fires.” As far as he can tell, based on information from CalFire, the Eaton Fire started on an urban street.
While it’s likely that climate change played a role in amplifying the drought, it’s hard to say how big a factor it was. Patrick Brown, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, published a long post on X outlining the factors contributing to the fires, including a chart of historic rainfall during the winter in Los Angeles that shows oscillations between wet and dry years over the past eight decades.
But climate change is expected to make dry years drier and wet years wetter, creating a “hydroclimate whiplash,” as Daniel Swain, a pre-eminent expert on climate change and weather in California puts it. In a thread on Bluesky, Swain wrote that “in 2024, Southern California experienced an exceptional episode of wet-to-dry hydroclimate whiplash.” Last year’s rainy winter fostered abundant plant growth, and the proceeding dryness primed the vegetation for fire.
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Editor’s note: This story was last update on Monday, January 13, at 10:00 a.m. ET.