Home Depot 2012 Annual Report Download - page 10

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From our Store Support Center, we maintain a global sourcing program to obtain high-quality products directly from
manufacturers around the world. Our merchant team identifies and purchases innovative products directly for our stores.
Additionally, we have three sourcing offices located in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Shenzhen and Dalian, as well as
sourcing offices in Gurgaon, India; Rome, Italy; Monterrey, Mexico and Toronto, Canada.
Quality Assurance. We have both quality assurance and engineering resources that are dedicated to overseeing the quality
of all of our products, whether they are directly imported, locally or globally sourced or proprietary branded products.
Through these programs, we have established criteria for supplier and product performance that are designed to ensure that
our products comply with applicable international, federal, state and local safety, quality and performance standards. We also
have a Supplier Social and Environmental Responsibility Program designed to ensure that our suppliers adhere to the highest
standards of social and environmental responsibility.
Energy Saving Products and Programs. As an industry leader, The Home Depot is committed to doing the right thing for
our customers and the environment. By providing consumers a selection of environmentally preferred products that help
them save money, energy and water, we are helping to ensure a more sustainable future. Through our Eco Options® Program
introduced in 2007, we have created product categories that allow consumers to easily identify products that meet
specifications for energy efficiency, water conservation, healthy home, clean air and sustainable forestry. As of the end of
fiscal 2012, our Eco Options® Program has certified over 5,000 products. Through this program, we sell products such as
ENERGY STAR® refrigerators, dishwashers, compact fluorescent light ("CFL") bulbs, EcoSmart® LED light bulbs,
programmable thermostats, tankless "on demand" water heaters and other products, enabling our customers to save on their
utility bills. LED light bulbs, which use approximately 85% less energy and last up to 20 years longer than traditional
incandescent bulbs, continued to be one of our fastest growing categories for the year. We estimate that in fiscal 2012, sales
of ENERGY STAR® qualified products helped consumers save over $700 million in annual utility costs. We also helped our
customers save water through sales of WaterSense®-labeled bath faucets, showerheads, aerators and toilets. Through the sales
of these products, we estimate that we have helped consumers save over 30 billion gallons of water and over $200 million in
water bills.
In fiscal 2012, we made extensive updates to the Eco Options® page on our website to enable us to address growing customer
demand for environmentally responsible and cost-saving products and projects. The newly enhanced site increases consumer
awareness of the environmental impacts of various products, provides educational tips and identifies "green" projects. The
site also helps consumers identify products included in the Eco Options® program, and it now includes a calculator to enable
consumers to determine energy and water savings achievable by making small changes in their homes.
In partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council, we launched a website in fiscal 2012 to help our customers easily
identify products with potential Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ("LEED") point values. At the end of fiscal
2012, we had approximately 3,500 "LEED for Homes" products sold in our stores and online. The website, found at
www.leed.homedepot.com, is designed to simplify the complexities of building green and arm our customers with the tools
needed to navigate the LEED for Homes programs by providing tips, informative videos and educational content.
We continue to offer our nationwide, in-store CFL bulb recycling program launched in 2008. This service is offered to
customers free of charge and is available in all U.S. stores. We also maintain an in-store rechargeable battery recycling
program. Launched in 2001 and currently done in partnership with Call2Recycle, this program is also available to customers
free of charge in all stores throughout the U.S. Through these recycling programs, in fiscal 2012 we helped recycle over
600,000 pounds of CFL bulbs and over 852,000 pounds of rechargeable batteries collected from our customers. In fiscal
2012, we also recycled over 98,000 lead acid batteries collected from our customers under our lead acid battery exchange
program, as well as approximately 173,000 tons of cardboard through a nationwide cardboard recycling program across our
U.S. stores.