Amazon is Ahead of the Green Game by Miles

SEATTLE—While Seattle became the first major US city to ban plastic straws, utensils and cocktail picks at restaurants on July 1, Amazon was ahead of the green game, and then some. Amazon puts its scale and innovative culture to work for sustainability in many ways. Its sustainability team includes seven expert groups: energy and environment, packaging, social responsibility, sustainability services, science and innovation, transportation and technology.

Some 20 of the buildings on its Seattle campus were built using LEED standards. The interiors of Amazon’s buildings feature salvaged and locally sourced woods, energy-efficient lighting and composting and recycling alternatives, as well as exterior public plazas and pockets of open green space. The green roofs on its Doppler building and adjacent meeting center reduce building heating and cooling loads, clean and reduce storm water runoff by at least 70%, moderate the urban heat island effect and improve local air quality.

And, the e-commerce giant didn’t stop there. It joined the Department of Energy’s Workplace Charging Challenge, a public-private partnership to support the development of the national plug-in electric vehicle/PEV infrastructure. Amazon offers PEV charging stations for the more than 40,000 employees in Seattle.

Its buildings in the Denny Triangle area of Seattle are heated using an innovative approach to sustainability—recycling energy. Amazon is heating 3 million square feet in Seattle using recycled energy generated at a non-Amazon data center in the neighboring Westin Building across the street from its buildings. The project is called District Energy and it’s four times more efficient than traditional heating. This system works by capturing heat and recycling that heat through underground water pipes instead of venting it into the atmosphere. This unique approach is nearly four times more efficient than traditional heating methods and will also enable the Westin Building data center to cut back on the energy it uses to cool its building.

Last year, Amazon announced a goal to have more than 50 fulfillment facilities with solar on rooftops by 2020. To date, Amazon has announced or commenced construction of a total of 3.6 million megawatt hours of renewable energy.

In 2017, Amazon launched its largest wind project to-date–Amazon Wind Farm Texas. Amazon’s projects will generate enough clean energy to power more than 330,000 homes a year.

Amazon’s packaging initiatives (such as frustration-free packaging and ships in own container) eliminated more than 215,000 tons of excess packaging as of 2017. That’s 360 million boxes avoided.

About 55% of employees at the Seattle headquarters get to work by walking, riding bikes, or taking public transit. This is one of the big benefits of an urban campus.

And that is before the ongoing conservation efforts at the Spheres and its impressive horticulture stats are taken into account.

“These unique buildings are so much more than a beautiful creative space for Amazon employees,” said governor Jay Inslee. “They will help conserve a number of rare plant species from around the world and provide countless educational opportunities for local students–and that’s something Washington can take pride in.”

Any discussion of the Spheres requires starting with the 4,000-square-foot green wall. Prior to being assembled into a 60-foot living wall, project champion and horticultural program manager, Ben Eiben, and his team assembled the living walls, first by growing plants on 3-foot-long panels at the greenhouse. When the panels were ready, they were transported and attached to the growing surface at The Spheres. With this careful preparation, the team assembled the Spheres’ tallest living wall in only two weeks.

In addition to being a creative way to display plants, green walls also provide many benefits including reducing urban heat islands, cleaning interior airspace, and providing natural cooling and insulation for buildings. Similar to natural cloud forests, the living walls demonstrate vertical stratification, the phenomena that certain plant species thrive at certain heights. In general, light at the base of forests is limited compared to the canopy. The same concept applies to humidity, temperature and nutrient availability. The horticulture team considered this in designing the wall’s plant palate. The wall base features plants that prefer lower light levels, cooler temperatures and more water.

Plants found here include many ferns, orchids and aroids. More than 40,000 plants and 400 species call the Spheres home at any given time. The Spheres’ plant collection spans five continents and 50 countries, and many of the plants have journeyed from the vast reaches of the globe from botanical gardens, tree nurseries and conservation programs. It also includes specimens from The University of Washington and Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Many of the Spheres’ plants are found in cloud forests, a remarkably diverse type of high-elevation tropical forest that receives much of its moisture from direct contact with clouds rather than from rain. Cloud forest plants depend on cool, humid conditions. Cloud forest ecosystems are typically located at high altitudes (3,000 to 10,000 feet), and found in tropical and subtropical mountainous regions of the world where cooler temperatures on mountain slopes cause clouds to form.

Plants in these ecosystems have adapted to cooler temperatures, which makes those climate needs comfortable for people too. To ensure that both people and plants can thrive, the Spheres operate on a diurnal cycle–the daytime temperature inside will average 72 degrees with humidity around 60%, and the nighttime temperature will average 55 degrees with humidity around 85%.

From afar, the walls offer a rich canvas of color, and up close, they boast more than 200 different species of plant coverage. Additionally, one of the walls features pitcher plants—carnivorous plants that have adapted to grow modified leaves filled with water and digestive enzymes. A few different species are represented, each exhibiting variation in trap morphology.

“The use of plant biodiversity, including the ‘weird’ and ‘ugly’ specimens, to tell the story of interconnections among living things will be an inspiration to all who visit and work at The Spheres,” said Toby Bradshaw, professor and chair, University of Washington department of biology.

The Spheres’ largest inhabitant–a Ficus rubiginosa dubbed Rubi–was planted at a tree farm in California in 1969. Today, Rubi is 55-feet tall, 22-feet wide and weighs nearly 36,000 pounds.

Underneath its vast foliage is a sophisticated irrigation system that efficiently recirculates nutrients and water. Irrigation supply is pumped to the very top of the walls and slowly percolates to the bottom, fertilizing and watering plants as it moves downwards. The wall is made of a surface mesh that spreads nutrients to all of plants that need it. Catch basins collect excess water, as it makes its way back to a central reservoir so the process can begin again. As a result, irrigation is simple and sustainable.

“We are proud to have Amazon call Seattle home. In addition to the continued economic impact they have made in terms of adding jobs to our economy, they have been a shining example of a company that is changing the landscape of their city for the better in all aspects. Looking around South Lake Union, the Spheres are architecturally thoughtful and they connect employees, visitors and residents alike,” Tom Norwalk, president and CEO of Visit Seattle, tells GlobeSt.com. “Technologically, they have transformed the way we shop through developments like Prime Now and the Amazon Go store. But probably the most critical is how they have transformed our city socially, partnering with non-profit organizations like Mary’s Place and FareStart to provide the most vulnerable in our community access to safe shelter, resources, and job training.”

During the past 30 years, the University of Washington has cultivated a world-class plant collection at the UW Botany Greenhouse (9,000 specimens and 3,000 species). This past summer, the building was torn down to pave the way for a state-of-the-art greenhouse facility. Amazon is providing a home to all of these plants at a greenhouse in Woodinville, WA while construction is taking place, providing the space and care to keep the collection thriving for future UW students.

The UW plant collections are a vital component of UW Biology’s missions—research, teaching and public outreach. Indeed, the outreach mission alone brings thousands of visitors annually to the greenhouse—K-12 students and teachers, garden clubs, horticultural societies, photographers and artists, and visitors. UW has also shared some plants for use in The Spheres, and there will be many more such opportunities to share resources and expertise as UW Biology moves into its home.