EPA names Coldwater Creek as top retail green power purchaser

SANDPOINT — Coldwater Creek, one of the fastest-growing women's apparel retailers in the United States, today announced that it has been added to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of Top 10 retail green power purchasers in the Green Power Partnership.

Coldwater Creek is being recognized for its voluntary purchase of 45 million kilowatt-hours of green power to offset 100 percent of its operations' electricity use.

Appearing for its first time, Coldwater Creek ranks No. 6 on the Top 10 Retail list. This Top 10 list highlights retailers within the Green Power Partnership that have completed the largest annual voluntary green power purchases through Sept. 22. This and other Top Partner lists are available at http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/partners/top10retail.htm.

"Playing our part in protecting the environment has been a very high priority for us since the time the company was founded in 1984," said Dennis Pence, founder, chairman and chief executive officer for Coldwater Creek.

"We're proud that our recent conversion to company-wide use of wind energy to power our headquarters, distribution and customer contact centers and growing base of retail stores resulted in being named as one of the EPA's Top 10 retail green power purchasers."

"Green power" is defined as electricity that is partially or entirely generated from environmentally preferable resources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro resources. Renewable energy sources are cleaner than conventional sources of electricity that produce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a greenhouse gas linked to global climate change. Green power purchases help accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide.

Coldwater Creek is offsetting all of its electricity consumption for its headquarters, distribution and customer contact centers and growing base of retail stores with wind power. The company is purchasing 45 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy certificates from 3 Phases Energy.

In addition to being recognized as one of the Top 10 retail Green Power Partners, Coldwater Creek is also being recognized as a Green Power Leadership Club Member. The Leadership Club honors Green Power Partners that have made an exemplary green power purchase that significantly exceeds minimum Green Power Partnership purchase requirements.

Over the next three years, the company has committed to buy more than 217,000 megawatt-hours of wind-generated electricity. By supporting wind energy, Coldwater Creek is preventing more than 299 million pounds of CO2 - a key greenhouse gas - from entering the Earth's atmosphere between now and 2009. This is the equivalent CO2 savings of taking nearly 30,000 cars off the road for one year, or the same amount of CO2 absorbed by protecting more than 113,000 acres of trees.

"EPA applauds Coldwater Creek for its leading voluntary green power purchase and for helping to drive demand for new renewable energy power sources," said Kathleen Hogan, Director of the Climate Protection Partnership Division for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "This Top 25 list includes a number of marquee American retailers that are buying significant amounts of green power."