Environmental Leader

Verizon’s call-switching center and office building in Garden City, N.Y., uses seven fuel cells, each of which is able to generate 200 kwh of electricity. The company has earned the EPA’s Energy Star Award for operating it, the nation’s largest fuel cell site of its kind.

Verizon says the system provides as much as 80 percent of the facility’s power load when all seven fuel cells are activated, eliminating 11.1 million pounds of GHG emissions per year.

Waste heat created by the fuel cells generate 75 percent of the energy required to heat the facility and one-third required for cooling, Verizon says, and its energy conservation, waste prevention and recycling efforts reduce GHG emissions by an estimated 332,295 metric tons annually.

Verizon recently announced that it will apply new energy-consumption standards it has developed to those who supply certain kinds of equipment to the company.