Empire State Building Becomes Empire Green Building

The Empire State Building, New York City’s iconic 2.85 million sq. foot office building, has just become New York City’s largest commercial purchaser of 100% renewable energy.

The landmark has signed a two-year contract with Green Mountain Energy Company to purchase 100% of its electricity (nearly 55 million kilowatt hours) as wind power from Green Mountain Energy, 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

The purchase is more than double the amount of renewable power that any other commercial customer in New York City is currently buying.

“It was a natural fit for us to combine 100% clean energy with our nearly completed, ground breaking energy efficiency retrofit work,” said Anthony E. Malkin, president of Malkin Holdings. “Clean energy and our nearly 40%
reduced consumption of watts and BTUs gives us a competitive advantage in attracting the best credit tenants at the best rents. Our program of innovation at the Empire State Building shows simple, replicable, non-proprietary steps for other landlords to follow to be more energy efficient, cleaner and greener.”

“We are extremely pleased that an icon like the world-famous Empire State Building made this important commitment to support renewable energy,” said Paul Thomas, CEO of Green Mountain Energy Company. “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.”

Green Mountain will work with the Empire State Building to develop materials to educate the building’s tenants and visitors about the benefits of choosing renewable energy.

The Empire State Building’s historic green power purchase exceeds the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Green Power Partnership requirements.