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.”
