More green news from booksellers: Environmental Leader reported that Half Price Books, a new and used bookstore chain, signed an agreement with Green Mountain Energy to power 30 stores and other facilities in Texas with 100% wind power for the next 3 years. Half Price Books, the nation’s largest family-owned new and used bookstore chain, will be purchasing about 11.3 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of wind power annually from the renewable energy provider.
This move according to the Houston Business Journal, earned commendation from the EPA after Half Price Books’ purchase ranked fourth on the list of largest renewable energy retail power purchases in Texas, behind Whole Foods, FedEx Office and H-E-B Grocery Co. In addition to wind power, Green Mountain Energy Company also offers a choice of carbon offset products through its BeGreen division.
This is by all means a very bold move - by purchasing 11.3 million kWh of wind power, Half Price Books will offset estimated 15 million pounds of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of planting 901,000 trees or recycling 6 million pounds of newspaper.
“Half Price Books has long been a supporter of the environment, even going so far as to include ‘be kind to the environment’ in its official mission statement,” said Kathy Doyle Thomas, executive vice president of Half Price Books on the joint press release of Half Priced Books and Green Mountain Energy. “Making the switch to Green Mountain just made sense to us in order to continue to do what we can to help the environment.”
If you look at their Environment web page you can understand what Doyle Thomas is talking about. Just look at the first paragraph:"Helping the environment by preserving and recycling resources is part of our daily business. At Half Price Books we feel that everyone can help preserve the environment. Trees recycle water, oxygen and carbon dioxide. This helps to reduce soil erosion, air pollution and flooding. Recycling paper also helps the environment by saving energy and water, as less energy and water is used by reprocessing already processed paper, rather than virgin pulp."
Kudos to Half Price Books. Now not only they will support the environment by selling reused books, maximizing the usage of printed books and saving resources, but they will also give a great example to the commitment to clean energy we wish many other retailers would do.
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net
