NORCROSS, GA – Unisource Worldwide, Inc. – one of the largest privately held companies in the United States and a global provider of innovative, sustainable, highly efficient solutions across the life cycle of core business operations including product packaging and fulfillment, paper and print management, general supply chain and logistics, and facility supplies solutions – has earned ENERGY STAR certification for its La Palma, CA distribution center.

“One of our sustainability goals for 2013-2014 is to evaluate the energy performance of all of our buildings through the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager model. It’s a testimony of the hard work of our operations team to ensure we achieve peak environmental performance in our buildings,” said Jeff Rudy, President – Supply Chain for Unisource Worldwide.

The La Palma, CA distribution center, located in Northern Orange County, is a 425,000 square foot building housing both a warehouse and customer service center.  The ENERGY STAR designation is given only to buildings scoring in the top 25 percent of similar facilities nationwide for energy efficiency, based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) energy performance rating system.

“Earning our first ENERGY STAR certificate aligns us with the commitments we made in the Unisource Sustainability Report, Sustainability Reimagined,” said Andrew Gustyn, Director of Sustainability – North America for Unisource Worldwide.  Other highlights in the report include a baseline measurement of the company’s environmental footprint and an overall recap of the progress the company has made in sustainability.

ENERGY STAR was introduced by EPA in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency. Today, the ENERGY STAR label can be found on more than 60 different kinds of products as well as new homes and commercial and industrial buildings that meet strict energy-efficiency specifications set by the EPA. Over the past 20 years, American families and businesses have saved a total of nearly $230 billion on utility bills and prevented more than 1.7 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions with help from ENERGY STAR.