PLANO, TX — JCPenney yesterday announced its latest environmental goals: By 2015, the retailer plans to reduce the energy used per square foot of real estate by 20 percent.
The company will achieve this goal largely through investments in energy efficiency, including installing smart meters, building management technologies, lighting retrofits and more efficient heating and air conditioning systems.
JCPenney has laready invested $130 million in green improvements of its stores to date, and the company says that as a result of those investments, in 2009 it reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 million pounds.
A part of the strategy for achieving the company's new goal includes harnessing its 150,000 employees as part of its EMPowered program, an employee education project that encourages workers to find new ways to save energy.
"To become a more sustainable business, we needed to involve our 150,000 associates whose individual actions and habits can have a profound effect in achieving energy conservation every day," JCPenney CEO Myron Ullman, said in a statement. "A true commitment to environmental progress begins with an organization that is willing to take the necessary steps toward a cleaner environment."
JCPenney aims to achieve Energy Star certification for 200 of its stores by the end of 2010, as well as use renewable energy for 25 percent of its total operating power. JCP's first store became Energy Star-certified in October 2007, and in April 2009 flipped the switch on two solar-power retail stores in New Jersey.