DHL Supply Chain Setting an Example in Environmental Sustainabiity

One of Westerville’s top employers continues to make a positive impact on the community as a leader in sustainability efforts.

DHL Supply Chain has had a presence in the City since 1991 and opened the doors to its North American headquarters at Westar Place in November 2019. When the Germanybased Deutsche Post DHL Group team designed its 145,000-square-foot North American headquarters on 10.1 acres of land in Westar, they did so with the intent of making Westerville, and the world, a better place.

“This really is a group effort,” said Sarah Jilbert, DHL Supply, Chain’s sustainability program manager. “The Westerville headquarters’ Green Team is a 20-person group that is committed to making DHL a better place to work. They bring their own ideas to the table and our associates really benefit from and are proud of our initiatives.”

The headquarters’ Green Team has taken steps to educate associates on what should be recycled or composted, instituted plastic bag recycling to support a local Westerville initiative, hosted a spring clean-out donation event and helped build a community garden right outside the building. The team also helped put together the process for employees to check out a DHL bike from the bike room to travel to lunch or get in a quick midday workout.

As for the building, the company leveraged the City’s BusinessWISE (Westerville Incentive Savings for Efficiency) program to complete an efficiency project in 2020. Westerville Electric Division Business Manager Tara Trigg helps manage the program.

“Through this project, DHL Supply Chain was able to incorporate LED interior and exterior lighting and interior occupancy sensors with multi-level dimming to achieve a 36% reduction compared to the industry standard,” said Trigg. “The exterior lighting achieved an 83% reduction compared to the industry standard and the energy efficient HVAC systems incorporated substantially exceeded industry standards. In all, we achieved estimated savings of more than 277,500 kWh per year and demand savings of 46.4 kW per year.”

DHL’s headquarters, which serves as a test environment for the rest of its facilities, is ENERGY STAR certified, meeting strict energy performance standards set by the EPA to help save energy and money and protect the environment. To do this, the company has taken several steps to stay at the forefront of sustainability at the headquarters:

- Use smart plugs, which can schedule and monitor energy usage. For example, all equipment in the kitchens turn off at night and over the weekend to conserve energy.

- Annually purchases renewable energy certificates for 100% of the electricity the building consumes. With 100% renewable electricity and no other energy sources being utilized, the building is carbon neutral.

- Eliminated large trash cans from each cubicle, replacing with recycling containers to help limit plastic waste.

- All lights in the building are LED. They’re all in different zones meaning different parts of each floor can be controlled separately.

- Utilize robots, which can perform tasks such as vacuuming overnight.

- Westerville headquarters has eliminated coffee cups and all employees must bring their own reusable thermos or cup.

Through all of these steps, DHL hopes to remain a strong example of sustainability for businesses both locally and beyond. But that’s just a drop in the bucket of what DHL has and continues to do as a global leader in sustainability.

“There is the obvious cost savings when it comes to lights, plugs and how we run our HVAC,” said Jilbert. “We focus our efforts around where we can save energy in the building along with how to limit our water and waste consumptions. As the North American headquarters of our company, it’s important to us that we’re showing our commitment to sustainability and we want to show off that this is what we believe in. We want to instill that belief in our other facilities around North America and, hopefully, other businesses in Westerville.”

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