DC Velocity - August 2013

The deliberate use of native prairie grasses at the facilities
is a prime example. “You drive around a lot of industrial
parks, you find manicured grass,” he says. “It makes no
sense environmentally, aesthetically, or economically.”
The Murphy Co. began installing prairie flora on its prop-
erties in 1994. The company estimates it
has saved close to $1 million at two of
the facilities since that time as a result of
installation and maintenance costs that
are far lower than for seeded lawns of
sod. Murphy says the ROI for installa-
tion is 1. 3 years and that annual main-
tenance costs are one-fifth those of
maintaining a cut lawn.

Murphy finds the company’s experience at its Northtown Logistics campus to be telling. “We run 33,000 trucks in and out of there annually,” he says. “And the number one thing we hear from the city is about all the pretty flowers on Main Street. We’re saving money, have better carbon sequestration, and visually, it’s what people like to look at.”

MAKING SOLAR POSSIBLE

Solar power is another area where the Murphy Co. has had
success that is contrary to conventional wisdom. Between

2010 and 2012, the Murphy Co. installed eight solar systems on five buildings that combined produce 320 kilowatt-hours of electricity, making it one of the largest producers of solar power in the state. Murphy points out that low utility rates in the Midwest militate against making a straightforward investment in solar power. The company took advantage of several grants to build a business case for the installations. Those included grants from the state and federal governments and the local electric utility.

The final piece of the solar puzzle came in the form of Small Business Administration (SBA) loans—a type of financing not generally available to warehousing companies because they usually don’t meet a key lending standard that rates companies on the number of employees per square foot of building space. “When they saw we were investing in solar power, we were instantly in the program,” Murphy says. That financing was crucial. The SBA loan provided 95 percent of the financing. He says the long ROI— 11 years for the solar power investment— would have prohibited the investment without it. ;