specialreport
BY TOBY GOOLEY, SENIOR EDITOR
Green and growing
A retrofit helped
fast-growing Other
World Computing
boost throughput and
efficiency at its LEED
Platinum distribution
center without
compromising its
green principles.
VISITORS TO OTHER WORLD COMPUTING’S WOODSTOCK, ILL., DISTRIBUtion center can be forgiven if they find themselves wondering whether the company is
taking its name a bit too seriously. Looming beside the building is a giant white figure
with whirling arms that looks (if you squint hard) like a visitor from another planet.
It’s not an invader from “The War of the Worlds.” The three-armed “giant” is actually a wind turbine owned by Other World Computing (OWC), an online retailer and
maker of hardware, software, and accessories for Apple computers. The turbine—194
feet tall if you count the blades—produces more than enough electricity for the company’s entire operation, including the 40,000-square-foot DC and manufacturing facility. It produces an estimated 1. 25 million kilowatt hours annually, up to twice what the
company’s corporate campus requires in a year, says Ryan O’Connor, OWC’s warehouse operations and logistics manager and occasional wind-turbine maintenance guy.
The turbine, installed in 2009, is just one facet of OWC’s efforts to incorporate environmentally sustainable practices into its business. The company constructed its
Woodstock campus in 2008 to comply with Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) standards. Thanks to innovations in such areas as energy production
and usage, lighting, construction materials, heating and cooling, water conservation,
PHOTOS COURTESY OF DEMATIC
