Sustainability is more than just a buzzword for National Geographic employees. With support from all divisions, our Washington, D.C. headquarters keeps over 60% of its waste out of landfills.

We have changed how we manage our facilities. We also replaced old, inefficient equipment. As a result, we saved $500,000 in energy costs in 2009 compared to our 1997 usage.

We know there’s still room to improve. However, we’re proud of the progress we’ve made so far.

Recycling & Composting

At National Geographic headquarters, recycling and composting programs are ever expanding and keep more than 60 percent of our waste out of landfills. Besides the usual paper recycling and glass, metal, and plastic container recycling available in good green businesses, National Geographic also composts. Bathroom paper waste is all composted, and throughout the building complex, employees are able to compost their lunch leftovers as well as the cafeteria’s special compostable takeaway containers, cups, and straws. Our HQ recycling program also includes batteries, cell phones, videos and DVDs, packing peanuts, toner cartridges, metal, plant materials, and most building and office supplies.

Lighting

We cut our electricity use by 20% between 2000 and 2009. The biggest savings came from changing how we use electricity. They re-evaluated start and stop times for building systems. So they also installed variable frequency drives on motors so air handlers start more softly and use less energy.

They also made big changes to our lighting as well.  For now they turn off unnecessary lights and use motion sensors on switches. In addition, they also switch off about 50% of our parking garage lights from 10 p.m. to 4:30 a.m.

Meanwhile, they changed the type of lighting they use, too. That’s why they replaced most incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents (CFLs) and more LEDs.

For the fluorescent fixtures, they switched to T-8 electronic technology. This cut wattage from 40W to 28W per fixture.

An added bonus was the improved color rendering index (CRI) of the new bulbs. This let us remove the upper tube in most two-tube fixtures. Most importantly, that change alone reduced our lighting electricity use by nearly 50%.

Water 

To reduce water use, we lowered tap flow and eliminated unnecessary water consumption. All our faucets are low-flow models equipped with aerators and motion sensors. We also replaced standard urinals and toilets throughout the D.C. complex with low-flow units.

Now, each automatic urinal flush uses just a pint instead of a gallon. The new toilets use 1.6 gallons per flush, cutting use in half compared to the old 3.2-gallon models.

Outside, we planted native species to reduce watering needs from daily to twice a week. Our sprinkler system can also detect rain and automatically stop watering when it’s not needed.

One of our biggest water savings came from reviewing all campus systems. We discovered an old water filtration setup that wasn’t needed anymore. By bypassing it, we saved thousands of gallons each year.

Heating

Reducing our natural gas use has been challenging, but we’ve made progress. We adjusted winter temperatures in our buildings. We also replaced two large boilers with four smaller ones. This change lets us reduce boiler use more easily in our 17th Street Building.

At our M Street Building, we need the boilers less often now. That’s because our two heat recovery chillers provide significant energy savings with much lower electrical usage. For the natural gas we can’t eliminate, we’re actively seeking offsets.

Printing

For internal use, we encourage employees to avoid printing whenever possible. Instead, they can scan documents with our black-and-white printers and email them. This way, recipients can choose to print only the pages they need.

When printing is necessary, we also use paper with 30% post-consumer content whenever possible. Because of these changes, our printing habits have improved significantly. We have cut our in-house print load almost in half. For example, we reduced it from a historic high of 13  million photocopies to less than 8  million.

Business travel

Along with our green efforts and practices at our facilities, National Geographic encourages sustainable practices when its employees must travel for business or while on assignment anywhere in the world.

To learn about all the things National Geographic does for Green Living, please click here