JohnsonDiversey maintains its environmental leadership with new building
BY MICHAEL BURKE
Journal Times | Posted: Saturday, September 1, 2007 12:00 am
STURTEVANT - It was fall 2006, six weeks had brought 10 inches of rain, and the future JohnsonDiversey Distribution Center project was mired in wet ground.
"We were trying to lay the foundation for the concrete slab," said Stu Carron, the company's director of global facilities and real estate. "The sub-base was not working; it wasn't draining."
The builder, Riley Construction of Kenosha, proposed a substitute for the normal crushed, quarried rock at the construction site in Renaissance Business Park along Highway 20. Riley suggested bottom ash - the black, granular left-overs from coal burning at power plants - for the sub-base.
That's what they used - about 12,000 tons of bottom ash from the privately owned We Energies landfill - and it worked remarkably well.
"We took everything the power plant (in Kenosha) could give us," Carron said. "Then they had to open a cell at the landfill."
That, coupled with the fact that nearly all construction waste was recycled, meant the building actually reduced the volume of landfill material. "We pulled 500 times more out of the landfill than we put back in," Carron said.
In all, he said, the warehouse used more than 30 percent recycled materials - including office wall coverings.
The story exemplifies why the distribution center's environmental impact is minimized, literally from the ground below to its light-reflecting roof.
Green competition
The new $24 million center has much in common with the global headquarters of JohnsonDiversey. Both were designed using the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system. The headquarters achieved LEED certification, and the warehouse is also expected achieve it at the second-highest level.
Energy savings were built in from the start. "Builders were competing on how 'green' a building they could build," Carron said.
"The surprising result for many people was that the company that gave us the highest level (of energy efficiency) was also the lowest bidder."
He said the center was designed using approximately 30 variables such as the number of products it would hold, price of land and speed of forklift trucks. "It was designed from the inside-out," Carron said.
JohnsonDiversey Chairman Curt Johnson said the warehouse is one of the company's biggest investments since restructuring began early in 2006.
"And it really embodies everything that we are as a company: committed to people, to maintaining environmental leadership," he said.
The gargantuan warehouse, with the equivalent of 11 football fields of floor space, replaces four separate, rented warehouses around the area.
Johnson said it was a "very easy" decision to build the center in the most environmentally friendly way possible.
For one thing, it is expected be good for business by raising customer satisfaction. Customers want their products delivered on time. With better light levels, acoustics and temperature control, said Carron, "It's just a better place to work."
Light and temperature
Lighting and cooling are two great examples of why, according to Carron, the warehouse requires 44 percent less energy than a merely code-compliant building of the same size.
The inner walls are white to reflect light, and the floor also has a glossy, light-reflecting surface. The interior is lit both by windows and banks of high-output but low-mercury fluorescent lights.
Carron explained that the lights are not turned on and off by switch. Rather, "they respond to daylight levels and motion in the aisles."
Each aisle has motion sensors. "As a forklift truck drives down it, individual lights go on as fast as he can drive down that row," Carron said. The lights go off a short while after the motion stops.
The building is not air-conditioned. Instead, cooling starts at the brilliantly white roof which reflects much of the sun's heat, and the R-19 insulation beneath the roof.
The reflectivity, Carron noted, also reduces the heat island effect - the fact that buildings, parking lots and urban areas get hotter than natural areas.
Cooler air is brought in at night, and the ventilation is slowly shut down as the day warms. Ceiling fans 20 feet in diameter keep the air moving.
Economically, Johnson said, the biggest benefits will come in savings on inputs such as natural gas, and a more efficient supply chain to customers.
Johnson pointed out that JohnsonDiversey is incorporating environmental principles with its sanitation products and systems.
He said, "We don't make or design anything that does not have an environmental benefit for our customers."
About JohnsonDiversey
JohnsonDiversey manufactures commercial cleaning, sanitation and hygiene products for the lodging, food service, retail, health care and food and beverage industries, as well as building service contractors.
The Sturtevant-based company is one of four separate companies controlled by the Johnson family. It has operations in 56 countries and sales in more than 160 countries.
For more information, visit http://www.johnsondiversey.com