Raymour & Flanigan takes 'green' to heart
By Heath E. Combs -- Furniture Today, 12/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
Id: 14355
In this story:
Move took off in 2006
N.J. store to be model
LIVERPOOL, N.Y. — Saying that Raymour & Flanigan is going green is an understatement.
Saying that a company-wide culture of sustainable business practices has taken hold would be more like it. The retailer demonstrates this commitment in many tangible ways.
Raymour, the nation's 10th largest furniture retailer, recently switched all the showroom lighting in its 83 stores in seven states from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbs, which have a lifetime of about 10 years.
That meant switching out 17,000 bulbs, said Sonny Rousell, vice president of real estate and construction for Raymour & Flanigan. He added that the changeover saved the energy equivalent of some 62,000 gallons of gas per year.
Rousell said that the stores have a contract in place to recycle the CFL bulbs, keeping the mercury inside them out of the trash.
In addition, the retailer has been converting to more efficient flat-panel display monitors from cathode ray tube screens. Replacing more than 2,500 of the conventional monitors is estimated to have saved the equivalent of another 6,923 gallons of gas per year.
Move took off in 2006
Going green mean more than simply following a trend — it's a deep commitment, said Rousell.
“We've tried to quantify green into tangibles. So our customers, associates and communities can see the trees for the forest, pun intended,” said Rousell.
Company officials say the move toward green really took off in 2006, when Neil Goldberg, president and CEO, saw Styrofoam while visiting a customer service center and asked if could be recycled. He directed his logistics and distribution teams to find what it would take to recycle all packaging materials.
In June 2007, the company opened a recycling center, which contains a heat extruder for processing Styrofoam into ingots that can be used to create consumer products such as picture frames.
The retrofitted 41,000-square-foot center is on Raymour's 63-acre main campus in Liverpool.
Last fall, the company moved an 80-ton cardboard bailer into the center. Since the facility opened, nearly 18.5 million pounds of cardboard, Styrofoam and plastic packaging have been recycled.
“Considering that we ship over 3.4 million pieces annually, this is a considerable savings of packaging material waste diverted from Northeast landfills,” said Vicky D'Agostino, director of communications.
Raymour also launched a transportation center project last fall. It is using waste oil generated by the company's fleet of 500 vehicles to heat a new 12,000-square-foot service garage that opened last winter. This saves the company from having to carry waste oil offsite, reduces power consumption and keeps waste out of oil separators.
“It's a multi-prong approach to save some utility money and some environmental energy impact to your site,” said Rousell. “It starts a little at a time and builds momentum.”
D'Agostino added that the recycling center and the transportation project were championed by Jeff Lannier, senior vice president of logistics and distribution.
N.J. store to be model
Operations have been a big focus of the retailer's green efforts, but there's also a focus on stores. This summer, Raymour & Flanigan will open its first Energy Star-rated store in New Jersey. It will become the model for more green-compliant stores that the company will build in the future.
The highly insulated Energy Star facility's energy-saving features include special glass that helps control heat transfer and reduces energy costs, white reflective roof membranes to reflect ultraviolet rays from sunlight and keep roofs cooler, and a load-shedding energy management system that reduces energy demand based on peak energy.
The company has begun using similar systems in other stores across its seven-state territory.
Energy Star buildings meet strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.
“Securing the approval rating requires a significant commitment of company resources beginning with design premise, construction methodology and engineering modeling,” said Rousell.
He said the company also is beginning to extend green efforts to some of its construction methods, such as partnering with material companies that use post-consumer recycled content, from carpet to ceiling tiles.
In tackling power consumption, Raymour has begun using renewable energy at most of its New York stores. Starting in January, Juice Energy began helping the company manage its electricity budget with custom renewable power strategies.
The retailer purchases green power in the form of Green-e certified renewal energy credits generated at wind facilities across the United States, which is estimated to save more than 800 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. The company is purchasing 10% of its energy in New York state from renewable sources and has established itself as an EPA Green Power partner.
“It was a conscious effort to avoid an increase in utility rates and get rid of ever-increasing market rate utility costs by buying green power,” Rousell said.
In addition, the retailer's energy-management system enables it to better control usage during non-operating hours.
“We're continuing on the low-hanging fruit right now,” Rousell said. “As the fruit continues to get higher up the tree, to extend our green initiatives, we must increase efforts across the organization accordingly.”
