The Empire State Building Goes Green

The world’s most famous office building is going all green.

The 2.85 million square foot building announced in its press release that it signed a two-year contract to purchase 100 percent wind power from Green Mountain Energy Company. This will make the building New York City’s largest commercial purchaser of 100 percent renewable energy.

What does this mean?

“[The Empire State Building will] purchase nearly 55 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of renewable energy annually, which will avoid nearly 100 million pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions each year. That is the equivalent of:

  • Nearly every house in New York State turning off all their lights for a week
  • Taking approximately 40 million fewer cab rides or
  • Planting nearly 150,000 trees – – more than 6 times the number of trees in Central Park.”

“This announcement is historic for many reasons. In addition to being the largest commercial consumer of green power in New York City, the Empire State Building’s renewable power purchase is now the largest purchase in our company’s 13-year history. This demonstrates that Green Mountain can serve all sizes of commercial customers with renewable energy at a price they can afford, and that going green doesn’t have to be a tradeoff,” said Paul Thomas, CEO of Green Mountain Energy Company.

You can read the full press release here.

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