Office Depot, a leading global provider of office products and services, announced today that IDG’s Computerworld, the “Voice of IT Management,” has selected the global retailer as one of the top Green IT Organizations for 2009. This honor is part of the publication’s annual feature highlighting companies with the world’s leading environmentally sustainable IT organizations and appears in the April 20 issue of Computerworld also available online at Computerworld.com. To view the full survey, visit http://www.computerworld.com/html/research and click on Top Green IT Organizations.

“Office Depot is honored to be chosen by Computerworld as one of the most environmentally sustainable IT organizations in the world for 2009,” said Tim Toews, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. “Office Depot’s environmental goals stretch into every area of the Company – including IT – and we are proud that through innovation and efficiency, the Office Depot IT division has been able to meet the greenest of standards.”

For the second year in a row, Computerworld set out to identify organizations that are implementing smart, efficient strategies to achieve “green IT.” Computerworld applied a set of criteria, developed with the help of green IT industry experts, to identify the organizations that are working to reduce energy consumption in IT equipment and are using technology to conserve energy and lower carbon emissions.

"Smart organizations know that there are energy and money savings beyond data center walls, and even beyond the IT department. Green IT efforts are found up and down the supply chain, from the data center to the desktop, from the mainframe to the end user,” said Scot Finnie, editor in chief, Computerworld. “Office Depot and the other organizations recognized in our second annual Top Green IT issue have explored new ways to apply technology to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions in every part of their operations."

Over the last four years, Office Depot has significantly reduced its energy usage while simultaneously expanding the Company’s capacity and improving reliability in the IT function. In 2007, Office Depot commissioned a Data Center Cooling System Efficiency Study, which provided important insights on the Company’s Global Data Center. Following the study, Office Depot successfully implemented a number of environmental initiatives, including:

• Sealing all computer room raised floor openings and unused computer cabinet space to maximize efficiency and reduce energy usage;
• Installing Hot Air Return Plenums on all of the computer room air handlers, which more effectively takes the hot air out of the room;
• Tuning the Data Center chilled water plant to increase efficiency and reliability; and
• Evaluating and implementing new hardware that is more energy and cost efficient to run, such as virtualization technology.

As a result of the Company’s accomplishments in the area of Green IT, Office Depot was previously nominated for the 2008 Site Facilities Physical Infrastructure Overhead Best-in-Class Award at the Uptime Institute Green Enterprise IT Recognition Ceremony. The Uptime Institute is a leading research-based think-tank and corporate advisory group that consults on business and technology issues related to critical computing, environmental reliability and energy efficiency.

“Reducing energy reduces a Company’s carbon footprint,” said Yalmaz Siddiqui, Director of Environmental Strategy for Office Depot, “Reducing energy also saves money. At Office Depot we have found time and again, as we have in our data center, that good environmental practice is good business practice.”