Every year, I look forward to Earth Day. It’s an opportunity to assess how well we’re performing as responsible stewards of the environment, and reflect upon what more we can do. At Adobe, we pride ourselves on being recognized as a leader in sustainability and prioritize reducing our environmental footprint through our everyday operations.

This year, Adobe is celebrating “Be Green” month throughout April. In our offices worldwide, local Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Action Teams have hosted events and activities ranging from food waste reduction campaigns and paper waste reduction competitions to river and park cleanups, bicycle workshops and more. Below is just a snapshot of what our employees are doing around the globe:

• Bangalore – Employees are restoring Puttenhalli lake by painting each of the 23 rectangular dust bins that surround the lake and planting shrubs and flowers at the entrance.
• Boston – Employees started a “donate a mug from home” drive, reducing the use of paper coffee cups.
• London – The team organized a bake-off to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)’s Sky Rainforest Rescue Project.
• New York – Employees volunteered for “NY Cares Day” at the Fresh Creek Nature Preserve in Brooklyn, an area hard hit by Hurricane Sandy.
• San Jose, Calif. – San Jose employees will remove trash from the local San Jose Guadalupe River, which supports local fish and birds.
• Seattle – Adobe Seattle’s on-site bicycling community is hosting a bicycling expo event and encouraging employees to sign up for a “Bike to Work Challenge” during the month of May.

It’s inspiring to see Adobe employees’ passion and dedication to contributing to a healthy, sustainable environment in their local communities. For more information about Adobe’s CSR initiatives, visit our CSR page.

Adobe volunteers install solar through community giving project with GRID Alternatives

At Adobe, employees with questions or ideas about sustainability turn to the Green Team, a group of passionate volunteers who are helping Adobe employees become more sustainable, both at home and at work. Many Adobe employee homeowners in San Jose, San Francisco and Seattle expressed interest in lowering their utility costs and using solar energy but weren’t sure where to start. As a result, Adobe’s Green Team engaged our West Coast employees in a SunShares program, a solar group-buy model designed to overcome common challenges to solar installations by pooling employee buying power and guiding them through the installation process, enabling employee groups to secure significant discounts on purchasing or leasing solar installations.

Sunshares was developed by the City of San Jose as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar America Cities Initiative. The Adobe Green Team SunShares program educated more than 100 employees about the opportunity through webinars and workshops, and included Adobe employees in the contractor vetting and selection process. The employees selected SunPower*, who delivered a 20 percent discount on solar electric systems in addition to leasing options to Adobe employees, family members, friends and neighbors of employees in San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle. The group exceeded its goal of 150 participants and a total of 24 installations representing 124 kilowatts of new solar energy capacity were completed in September 2012.

The SunPower Foundation, GRID Alternatives and the SunShares team also developed a combined giving campaign and raised $7,500 to sponsor a 3.88 kW solar installation volunteer workday on the home of a local low-income family in East San Jose. Adobe employees volunteered and brought solar power to a family in need.

*Adobe does not endorse SunPower.

Adobe Green Team SunShares participant and homeowner, Anna Luong, presents her new solar system

Earth Day is an annual reminder of the ways in which individuals can pitch in to do something for our planet. At Adobe, we are proud to be recognized as a green company and to empower employees to create a culture of environmental sustainability. This year, the Adobe Green Team and Action Committees setup multiple opportunities for employees to contribute to a healthy, sustainable environment not just for one day, but throughout the month of April. Here are some highlights of the earth friendly events and activities that employees participated in:

Waltham Fields Community Farms: Boston employees volunteered at Waltham Fields Community Farms with transplanting, weeding, mulching to help support the farm’s mission to grow produce for local soup kitchens, shelters and food pantries.

Employees at the Waltham Farms event

Fremont Street Clean: Seattle employees participated in the Fremont Street Clean to help pick up debris and trash from adopted streets near the Adobe office.

Guadalupe River Cleanup: right behind headquarters, Adobe has an adopted area of the Guadalupe River and every year, in honor of Earth Day, San Jose employees volunteer to remove trash from the river that supports local fish and birds.

Adobe Green Team SunShares program: the Adobe Green Team successfully launched a SunShares residential solar program, a new initiative that educated employees about solar energy through webinars and workshops, enlisted employees in the contractor vetting and selection process, and provided discounts on solar energy solutions for employee family members, friends, and neighbors in California and Washington. The April event was an end of the program celebration, which included employee testimonials about getting solar installed, cool sustainable giveaways, and a solar panel cake!

GRID Alternatives solar installation and fundraiser: a group of Bay Area employees volunteered with GRID Alternatives – a non-profit organization committed to empowering communities in need by providing renewable energy and energy efficiency services, equipment and training – to install a 3.88 kW solar system for a low-income family home in East San Jose. The Green Team and the San Francisco/San Jose Action Committees raised over $3,500, with donations matched by Adobe, for the GRID Alternatives workday to help bring the power of solar energy to a family in need.

Low-Carbon Living “Green Bag” Lunch and Learn: David Friedman, co-author of Cooler, Smarter: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Living and deputy director of Union of Concerned Scientists’ Clean Vehicles Program, shared his thoughts around the most effective ways to cut our global warming emissions by twenty percent or more.

Community Garden Planting Day and Celebration: On April 23, Adobe kicked off the new Community Garden at the San Jose headquarters. Employees signed up in teams to adopt a garden box and planted their first seedlings. Guest speakers at the event included Rosalind Creasy, edible landscaping expert, and Rebecca Jepsen, “Ask a Master Gardener” Mercury News Columnist, who discussed warm weather planting.

Employees at the Community Garden

For more pictures of the Earth Day activities and other volunteer efforts in April, visit the Community Action Month album on the Adobe CSR Facebook page.

Today at the GreenBiz Forum 12 in San Francisco, Adobe announced another step toward becoming Net Zero with the installation of two-200 kilowatt Bloom Energy fuel cells at our San Francisco offices. The fuel cells are expected to provide 35 percent of Adobe SF’s on-site power needs, the equivalent of powering 320 homes.  Net Zero buildings can be independent from the energy grid supply and have zero carbon emissions annually.

Fuel cells offer a high level of efficiency by reducing power lost in traditional energy transmission. Today’s news marks Adobe’s third major renewable energy installation.  At our San Jose headquarters, we installed 12-100 kilowatt Bloom boxes in the summer of 2010, which provide 30 percent of Adobe SJ’s total power.  In December 2009, we installed 20 Windspires, which harness wind power to generate clean electric energy on-site.

With the completion of this project, Adobe remains on the forefront of incorporating impactful, leading-edge clean technologies to our operations in an effort to reduce our environmental footprint. Over the next 10 years, Adobe expects to reduce its carbon footprint by approximately 121.5 million pounds, the equivalent of taking 1,810 compact cars off the road annually.

Our new Adobe sales office in Beijing, China recently received a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification from the USGBC. It is particularly distinctive as: Adobe’s first LEED certification outside of the United States; being one of only 24 LEED certifications in Beijing; and being one of only 160 LEED certifications in all of China. The certification of our Adobe facility in China underscores the company’s commitment to the sustainability of our global operations.

To reach Gold certification, the team in China worked closely with facilities in the United States to innovate on increasing our sustainability in the Beijing office:

• Reducing water consumption by 88%
• Realizing a 26% savings on lighting energy
• Reducing CO2 emissions by 2,772 KG/year
• Reusing furniture and lighting fixtures as much as possible
• Using “Cool Carpet” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• Implementing green housekeeping with green-sealed products and recycling
• Using low-emitting construction materials to maintain a favorable indoor environment

There is always more to be done and we’ll continue to partner with experts from around the world to learn, innovate, and continuously evolve.

We’re proud to announce that Adobe’s Seattle office facility, located in the Fremont area of Seattle, has been certified at platinum level under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program of the U.S. Green Building Council.  This accolade, the highest honor under the LEED program, marks Adobe’s 11th LEED certification overall – nine at platinum level, two at gold – and furthers Adobe’s reputation as a corporate leader in green and sustainable operations.

The path to certification included programs to improve energy efficiency, reduce waste and optimize water usage.  Specific improvements included installing an EvapoTranspiration (ET) Controller to monitor irrigation efficiency and water use; a software system to allow for Web-based and real-time energy monitoring of the building; and replacement of incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs to reduce energy use

I’d like to congratulate and commend the Seattle facilities team and our partners at building management firm Cushman & Wakefield who, together, successfully undertook the two-year project to certify the Seattle site – along with Adobe Seattle employees overall, whose efforts to create more sustainable, “greener” operations helped to achieve this important recognition.  We hope our efforts inspire other organizations that lease or own properties and want to make a difference by conserving and/or recycling precious resources. 

If you’d like to follow happenings at our Seattle site, please check out the dedicated Adobe Seattle Facebook page.

On Friday, February 18, 2011, San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee signed into effect a new law that aims to improve energy efficiency in existing buildings, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower energy costs. Mayor Lee chose Adobe’s 601 Townsend building in San Francisco as the backdrop for this news because of Adobe’s proven track record in sustainability. 601 Townsend is the oldest LEED-certified platinum green building in the world. Today, Adobe’s LEED certifications total 10—with 9 of these being platinum. We are extremely honored and proud to have hosted Mayor Lee for this momentous event.

Click here to learn more about what Adobe is doing in the environmental sustainability space.

San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee with me, Randy Knox