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
