I just read a Business 2.0 article on Adobe’s environmental efforts, and all I can say is “wow”! In five years they’ve reduced electricity consumption by 35% and gas use by 41% while increasing staff by 80%. If those numbers are accurate, that’s a roughly 65% decrease in energy use per employee. Very impressive. At the same time, they’ve switched to environmentally friendly cleaning products, helped build parks, reduced water usage, and are instituting a company wide composting system.

All of this has led them to receive the first platinum rating for a corporate building from the U.S. Green Building Council. Perhaps more impressively, it has resulted in an increase in profitability. For a $1.1M initial investment, Adobe is seeing a savings of $1M per year. What a great example of environmentalism and capitalism being mutually compatible.

Kudos to Adobe for doing the right thing and proving it can be profitable. Beyond the financial and environment gains, I’m certain this move will win the brand some mental marketshare, and consumer goodwill (it worked for me).

Can’t wait to see them roll some of these ideas into 601 Townsend and the other Macromedia buildings.

[UPDATE: More kudos to Adobe here]