Altria Group – John Negus – 2015

Goals

As of 2015, Altria Group had already achieved a 20 percent reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions since 2011. EDF Climate Corps fellow John Negus was recruited to help the trend continue. The main focus of his summer project was to examine lighting, HVAC and employee engagement programs at the headquarters campus, which consisted of over 500,000 square feet of office space.

Solutions

A series of lighting improvements had already been made, but the facilities management team helped identify a new-to-market LED version of the T8 bulbs used in many parts of the building. Based on Negus’s financial analysis and a conservative estimate of key variables, replacing the T8 bulbs with LEDs was expected to reduce energy consumption by 150,000 kilowatt hours each year. Negus then put into place a template to evaluate the next potential phase of lighting upgrades using T5 LEDs.

Beyond lighting, Negus worked on another highly visible project aimed to reduce waste by replacing paper towel dispensers with automatic hand dryers. The small increase in electrical demand created by the dryers was far outweighed by the benefit for employees and the decrease in paper use.

Additionally, Negus developed a model to evaluate the impact that adjusting HVAC set point temperatures could have on energy consumption. Negus also authored an internal article describing sustainable upgrades on the campus and examined the impact personal printers and space heaters have on building efficiency.

Potential Impact

The first stages of these projects have the potential to reduce operating expenses by over $40,000 every year, reduce natural gas consumption by 20,400 therms annually and prevent hundreds of pounds of waste from ever being created. An even greater value for Altria could be realized by taking the successful aspects of these pilot projects and implementing them across other areas of the business. The headquarters campus represents the cutting edge of sustainability at the company, and scaling up these initiatives should help Altria accomplish its next set of emissions reduction goals.