Corporate energy conservation effort adds participants

— -- Starbucks and Staples plan today to join the growing ranks of a voluntary Obama administration program to slash energy use at least 20% by 2020.

The companies will post their annual power usage and details on their conservation projects on a U.S. Department of Energy website, aimed at becoming a "playbook" for others to follow.

As part of his clean-energy strategy, President Obama launched the Better Buildings Challenge last year, arguing energy efficiency is "one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest ways" to save money and reduce pollution. DOE estimates that buildings waste 30% of the energy they use.

More than 50 other partners — companies, universities, cities, manufacturers and the state of Minnesota — have signed on, including 3M, Alcoa, Best Buy, General Electric, Lend Lease and Walgreens. Private investors have committed a total of $2 billion for energy-efficiency upgrades, DOE spokeswoman Jen Stutsman says.

"Our goal is to have leaders step up to showcase solutions," says Kathleen Hogan, DOE's deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency. For example, she says, HEI Hotels & Resorts, which owns dozens of hotels such as Marriotts and Hiltons, has used dashboards that post energy usage in its buildings to help cut power usage 5% annually since 2005.

"This shows you can do it. … This is a playbook," Hogan says, adding that the DOE program provides technical but not financial assistance.

Some participants, such as Kohl's Department Stores, however, had already committed to aggressive energy cuts. In 2009, Kohl's set a goal of emitting net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and by July 2010, nearly half its stores had earned the U.S. government's Energy Star label.

Starbucks announced, in 2009, a goal of slashing energy use 25% by 2015. Its new stores are receiving certification from the private U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program, which requires efficiency measures.

"The biggest reduction has come from light bulb retrofits," Starbuck's Arthur Rubinfeld says, referring to the switch to efficient LEDs (light emitting diodes) and CFLs (compact fluorescent lamps) at existing stores.

Rubinfeld says the company, which has about 6,700 stores in the U.S., has cut its electricity usage more than 7.5% since 2008.

The DOE program has skeptics. "Voluntary programs like the Better Building Challenge are not as worrisome as actual mandates. However, this looks like a plan to take credit for efficiency improvements that would be made anyway," says David Kreutzer, an energy economist at the Heritage Foundation, a self-described "conservative" think tank.

Also joining the program today are J.R. Simplot, an agribusiness company, and Pacific Gas and Electric, which is committing to provide commercial customers with energy-efficiency programs.