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At the Top of Their Game • 201

Figure 11.5
Certified SmartWay®.

According to Office Depot, more than half of their annual revenue in
North America, their primary market, is generated through deliveries.
Therefore a huge impact on their bottom line can be made by more-effi-
cient vehicles. By the end of 2007, they had calculated their carbon emis-
sions from deliveries, reduced their carbon emissions for two consecutive
years (11.8% reduction in 2006 and 9.6% reduction in 2007), and had a
substantial fleet of fuel-efficient Sprinter vans. Sprinter vans are designed
and powered by Mercedes-Benz and assembled in the United States
by Freightliner. Office Depot is also an active partner in the U.S. EPA’s
SmartWay Transportation Partnership, and based on their leadership
efforts in 2007, Office Depot was awarded a SmartWay Environmental
Excellence Award (see Figure 11.5).

selling green
Office Depot has approached selling green by delivering innovative
green solutions to their contract customer, direct customer, and retail
customers, and by selling greener paper. For those innovative solutions,
they provide a Green Book catalog and their designated green Web site
at http://www.officedepot.com/yourgreeneroffice.

Corporate social responsibility

To round out their green efforts, one only has to look to their core val-
ues: inclusion, innovation, and customer focus. Office Depot is committed
to recruiting a workforce that reflects the communities in which they do
business and providing a work environment based on honesty and mutual
respect. Further, they want to ensure that all people-related decisions are
made objectively, based on merit, and they will utilize a base of diverse
suppliers. As incentive, their managers at all levels are accountable for
implementing those core values.