W.W. Grainger, the Fortune 500 facilities maintenance supply company, which provides businesses everything they need to keep their facilities up and running, has lately begun stepping up its efforts to green its own operations, as well as helping its customers do the same. At the end of August last year, Grainger cut the ribbon on a 1.2-megawatt solar energy system on a distribution center in New Jersey, the most prominent example to date of how the company is using its own facilities to test-drive solutions that may help their customers cut their carbon footprints.

GreenBiz.com managing editor Matthew Wheeland spoke with Jeff Rehm, Grainger's sustainability manager, about the solar project, Grainger's larger sustainability initiatives, and the kinds of questions that companies have when they're first engaging with green initiatives.

Matthew Wheeland: The solar project you unveiled last year offers a good look at what your customers are starting to think about -- and ask about -- for sustainability issues. But before we get into that, tell me a little bit about sustainability within Grainger. How has it developed over the years and how does this solar project fit in?

Jeff Rehm: I think a big part of our sustainability vision for the company is that we want to run more sustainable operations and we want to help provide the products and services to help our customers do the same. We're building a strategy that encompasses both sides of the fence in terms of our internal operations and what we're going to do to reduce our carbon footprint, our energy, our water, our waste. Then, how we're going to develop an industry-leading offer around helping customers be more sustainable. So we've got a team that focuses on that and representatives from all across the business to help us implement the solutions.

We are always trying to experiment with new ways to run operations more efficiently, because that's the way we want to run our business -- but it's also the way our customers run their business.

We're in a pretty unique situation when it comes to facility operations, in that we have a lot of facilities ourselves. So we're able to test out solutions and scenarios that we ultimately think our customers might be interested in. The New Jersey solar panel installation project was just an example of some of the types of things we try to do to improve the way we run our operations. Then we try to learn from that experience and build solutions so we can help our customers do the same.

I think that's one piece of Grainger's value as a business and specifically with sustainability, but as a business not only do we carry thousands of products in stock, but we have access to really anything a customer could ever possibly want. It's really a one-shop stop where customers work with one person and have a partner through the process.

MW: In terms of the solar installation itself and the walkthroughs you had with your customers, what kind of questions come up, whether about solar or about green in general?

JR: They were definitely interested in why we chose that site in New Jersey. We explained to them our whole strategy around that and taking into account New Jersey as a very attractive solar energy market due to all the local incentives and regulations there in that state.

Other questions were obviously how long did it take? What did you have to do to the roof to make sure that it could sustain the weight? What's the maintenance of the project? And then it got into what other things can we do to achieve the same goals that you, Grainger, are trying to achieve by installing solar panels in terms of reducing energy costs and such?

MW: What is the kind of average awareness and education level of your customers when it comes to sustainability initiatives? Are they pretty well versed, or just starting out?

JR: We have a pretty broad spectrum of customers. We've got anywhere from 1 to 1.5 million active customers every year. They definitely span in terms of their interest in sustainability and ultimately their level of expertise. The position we try to play there is providing that general overview of what sustainability can mean in terms of maintenance and operations of a facility and specifically in terms of procurement of products to achieve different sustainability goals. We talk to our customers about how they can reduce energy, reduce water, reduce waste and improve the indoor air quality in their facilities. That's kind of what we consider the four environmental savings categories associated with sustainability.

The first question we would ask a customer or a customer might ask us is, "When you say sustainability, what do you mean?" and we try to define that right up front for them and with them so we're both on the same page. And with some customers, we get into a people profit planet discussion where we're very deep into sustainability and very academic. Others say sustainability to me means reducing energy costs.

The training we give our sales people helps them have those conversations with customers and let the customer tell us what their definition of sustainability is. Then we're able to respond to them the appropriate way. So if it's all about reducing costs, great, then we're going to be able to provide solutions around taking cost out of the business. We also share with them the dual benefits of reduced costs and environmental stewardship.

MW: What stumbling blocks do you have when talking to customers about sustainability? It sounds like wherever they're coming from you are able to meet them, but are there points of, not confusion necessarily, but are there obstacles to getting customers to choose more sustainable options or more energy-efficient options, anything like that?

JR: I would say more energy-efficient options aren't usually a real stumbling block because there's a pretty direct return on investments. I think our customers have been looking at and Grainger has been providing those solutions for a long, long time before sustainability was even a coined term. It really depends on the category you're talking about. Energy, again I think most people get that. But then when you get into some of the softer, less quantifiable benefits of choosing greener operational practices, I think there is a challenge.