W. H. Cooke & Co., Inc. has a green initiative to be as friendly to the environment as possible.    Some of the things we are doing to “walk the walk” are:

In November of 2011 we installed a 42KW solar “PV” system on the roof of our building.  182 solar panels provide approximately 110% of our annual electric usage, the excess being sold back to our electric utility provider – Adam’s Electric Cooperative.  About 70 percent of the power purchased by Adams Electric through Allegheny is generated from nuclear and hydro sources. The rest is purchased from market sources and may be generated with coal, natural gas or fuel oil.

Our PV system generates significant environmental benefits which are summarized here:

The solar PV system reduces green house gas emissions by the following equivalent CO2 reductions over a 25 year period.

Medium size car:                 1,281,104 miles not driven
Trees planted:                      132,576 trees planted
Lbs. of CO2 reduced            2,661,292 lbs of CO2

Very little virgin packaging material is used by W. H. Cooke & Co. - opting for recycled packaging wherever possible.   That’s why you will see our products shipped in “used” boxes along with used packing material.

We recycle as much as of our waste as possible including aluminum, steel, glass, plastics, cardboard, paper, plastic bags, light bulbs – pretty much anything that can be recycled.  We often have only 1 bag a week of trash a week going to the landfill.   Fortunately we have a recycling center nearby that accepts used electronics so old computer equipment and electronics are dropped there as well as batteries, clothing etc.

One of our two company cars is a Prius which averages 47-50 mpg.  The other is a Subaru which averages 25-29.

We scan, email and fax invoices, acknowledgements, purchase orders, quotes, credit card receipts - any documents our customers, vendors and associates will accept electronically.  Invoices are paid via ACH bank transfer whenever possible.   We are striving to become a paperless office. 

The lighting in our building is “zoned” so that unnecessary lighting can be turned off when not required.  95% of our lighting is high efficiency fluorescent or LED.  We use clean burning propane for heating and our AC compressors are dual speed, high efficiency units.

Below are pictures of our Solar "PV" system which went on line November 18th 2011. 

Click on the Solar Plant Data link above to see historical data of energy produced by our solar plant.  Once you get to the Sunny website, click on Energy and Power on the left to see the data in chart form.