Staples seeks to make it easy for our customers to purchase more sustainable products and services that will reduce our collective impacts on the environment and society. To help pursue this objective, we collaborate with our suppliers and other stakeholders to reduce packaging and improve its environmental performance, identify and offer a broad assortment of greener products, develop tools and resources to guide our customers to find and choose greener products, and launch recycling and other services that meet the needs of our customers while reducing environmental burdens. Ultimately, the measure of success is how we’re able to progress against our goals related to packaging reduction, green product sales, and recycling and other services.

Developing more sustainable product packaging

Excessive and unsustainable packaging drives up costs, wastes resources and burdens our customers with packaging waste that they then must either recycle or throw away. By reducing packaging volume and using more environmentally sensitive packaging materials, we’re asking our suppliers to help us ease the burdens that we collectively place on our customers and the environment.

Since we launched this initiative more than 2 years ago, Staples has identified more than 200 packaging project opportunities and has prioritized and pursued the highest opportunity and quick-win projects with Staples’ key suppliers. Thus far, our sustainable packaging team has completed multiple projects in high impact categories such as paper and technology. Paper projects have included material reductions on master cartons in paper, ink reductions on both master carton and ream wrap paper, and a move from poly ream wraps to paper ream wraps. Other completed projects include an “open box” program to reduce returns and master carton and shipping configuration changes that have increased transportation efficiencies and reduced our environmental impact.

Our biggest challenges to date in making more progress on product packaging include:

• Overcoming concerns that packaging changes will negatively impacts sales of product due to perceived customer preference for packaging that looks less “green;”
• Lack of alignment and competing supply chain priorities across retailers regarding sustainable packaging directives for suppliers that we share, making it difficult for suppliers to make changes to meet different needs; and
• Resistance to change to due initial costs associated with incorporating any changes in production processes required to implement sustainable packaging moves.

In addition to continued project work on specific packaging opportunities, we are working to launch several broader packaging initiatives over the next year, including integrating more sustainable designs into repackaging of Staples Brand products in a variety of categories, the development and release of a new packaging policy, and launching a new web-based packaging scorecard that will measure current supplier packaging impact and performance and track packaging improvements over time.

Minimizing packaging waste in our shipments

Along with our efforts to reduce and improve packaging around products, we have developed new processes and systems to ensure that our shipments to customers are engineered to minimize packaging.

In 2011, we used an estimated 40.5 million pounds of cardboard, 1.6 million pounds of plastic air pillows, and 210,000 pounds of Tyvek envelopes to ship products from our facilities to our customers using our delivery fleet. Recognizing that cardboard use in our outbound packaging was a significant impact, we successfully piloted new technology that essentially custom builds a box based on the contents of each customer’s order to largely eliminate the excess space in our delivery boxes. We have started rolling out this technology to all of our delivery distribution facilities, with 50 percent of facilities complete by the end of 2012 and the remainder scheduled to be transitioned by the end of 2013. We expect that this new technology will reduce cardboard use by nearly 20% and dunnage use by about 60% across our entire network.

Offering our customers more sustainable products

In our stores and online, Staples offers our customers more than 10,000 products with environmental features. This includes everything from attributes common in the industry like refillable pens and pencils and non-toxic certified markers to products with 100% post-consumer recycled content and those that meet stringent environmental standards like Energy Star, Green Seal, and the Forest Stewardship Council. In 2011, our sales of products with any environmental features we track in the U.S. were $3 billion.

While we’re glad to be able to offer this assortment of products today, we believe that our business and our customers need more visibility into what features, certifications, and/or supplier performance metrics drive the greatest environmental improvements in different product categories. Gaining clarity on these will allow us to make more sustainable purchasing decisions as a retailer and help us guide our customers to make it easy for them to make truly greener choices.

We are approaching this in a few different ways. Our initial focus has been to leverage existing certifications and features like recycled content to identify and track products that we believe lead to improved environmental performance compared to “industry average”. We recently initiated changes to our filtering logic on staples.com to enable customers to choose these products by selecting “eco-conscious” as they are shopping. This filter also allows customers to filter by recycled content, certifications, or other environmental designs. Sales of products meeting what we believe are more stringent environmental features totaled $1.9 billion in the U.S. in 2011. Globally, these sales totaled $2.5 billion, or 13% of sales across business operations who can report on this metric. Our eco-conscious product criteria vary by market, but are typically characterized by 30% or more recycled content materials and/or meeting specific third-party environmental standards.

In the coming years, we plan to collaborate with our suppliers and existing multi-stakeholder groups to create and implement more holistic scorecards and metrics for measuring product sustainability. We’ll use these scorecards to measure our success in offering and selling more sustainable products across key product categories over time, aligning with multi-stakeholder efforts where feasible. Our intention is to focus on “what matters most” within specific product categories. This means taking a holistic approach to identify and focus on reducing the greatest environmental impacts of the product across its life cycle, from raw materials extraction and manufacturing to use and end of life.

We are committed to working through the challenges of developing a more sustainable product assortment for Staples customers, including:

• Defining what makes a product more sustainable.
• Establishing incentives to embed sustainability into our purchasing decisions.
• Finding cost-effective ways for our suppliers to integrate sustainability into the products we purchase so that we can offer customers more sustainable products at competitive prices.
• Ensuring that we are aligned with the interests and needs of customers, suppliers, emerging industry standards and other key stakeholders.
• Overcoming customer confusion about what makes a product “green.”

Sustainable paper-based products

Our Sustainable Paper Procurement Policy forms the foundation of our commitment to ensuring that the paper products we sell are sourced in an environmentally and socially responsible manner and defines our expectations for suppliers of paper-based products. The policy focuses on four key areas:

1. Protect forest resources and communities
   • •Ensure suppliers source paper products from non-controversial sources, with a preference for products certified to the FSC standard.
2. Reduce demand for virgin wood fiber
   • •Integrate recycled and alternative fiber content into paper products where it makes business and environmental sense, based on the best available science.
3. Source from paper mills committed to environmental excellence
   • •Assess mill efficiency across our key suppliers and use it to inform purchasing decisions.
4. Report on our progress
   • •Periodically discuss and report on how we are progressing on the key elements of our policy.

Several collaborations are helping us make progress across these focus areas.

Through our participation in Rainforest Alliance’s SmartSource program, we supported the development of a Web-based sustainability sourcing evaluation tool for wood and paper products. The SmartSource 360 tool enables large paper and/or wood product buyers like Staples to trace the origins of these products through the supply chain to evaluate whether responsible sourcing practices have been used, with validation support provided by Rainforest Alliance staff. The SmartSource 360 initial version was completed and piloted at Staples in late 2011. Staples is currently rolling out SmartSource 360 to key suppliers in a prioritized fashion and taking action based on what we learn.

Since late 2009, Staples has helped lead a multi-stakeholder effort called the Carbon Canopy in collaboration with the Dogwood Alliance. This effort engages other conservation groups, wood products companies and landowners to protect forests, combat climate change and help develop sources of FSC-certified paper and wood products. The goal is to create financial incentives for private landowners to increase forest conservation and restoration efforts and work toward FSC certification, thereby producing a stable supply of FSC certified wood to forest product manufacturers and increasing the available supply of FSC certified wood and paper products in the U.S. marketplace.

In 2012, two of the Carbon Canopy’s three current pilot projects were moving towards completion, and the group aims to add multiple and diverse demonstration projects in the next few years to continue gleaning best practices and processes for expanding the volume of certified forests. Carbon Canopy members have also held meetings with carbon market specialists to evaluate opportunities to make an initial sale of carbon credits, to be traded in spring 2013. Over the next 20 years, the Carbon Canopy aims to catalyze the sustainable stewardship of an additional 20 percent of southern forests.

In 2011, we became a founding member of the Forest Products Working Group (FPWG), a project of the non-profit GreenBlue. This group, comprised of paper manufacturers, large paper buyers and resellers, printers, and others is focused on developing innovative and sustainable solutions to support thriving forests and the forest products industry. One of the early focus areas of the FPWG will be on identifying and seeking to accelerate innovative models for increasing the amount of certified forests in the U.S. Future project work will likely focus on helping define the group’s view of the appropriate use of recycled content across various grades of paper.

Staples also participates in WRI’s Forest Legality Alliance, an initiative aimed at eliminating illegal timber from entering global supply chains as well as the Boreal Business Forum, a group of businesses overseeing the implementation of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, the world’s largest consortium agreement, covering over 76 million hectares of Canadian boreal forest.

We will continue to work closely with stakeholders and our suppliers to ensure they are taking action to improve their forest-management practices, protect endangered and high conservationÐvalue forests, and develop more sustainable products.

Committed to offering safer and more sustainable products

Staples recognizes that chemicals are a key element of the global economy. The introduction of new chemicals over the past few decades has provided significant value to product designers and can improve the quality, efficiency and convenience of products in our workplaces, homes and communities. At the same time, Staples recognizes that not all chemicals and products are created equal when it comes to their potentially adverse effects on human health and the environment.

As a result, Staples is committed to offering safer and more sustainable products to help maintain a clean, safe and healthy workplace and environment. We are accomplishing this in several ways:

• We offer our customers many non-toxic products, including our Sustainable Earth cleaning product line, that are certified to recognized third-party standards and organizations like GreenGuard, Green Seal and EPA Design for the Environment.
• We are also part of several collaborative groups and organizations – like the Green Chemistry Commerce Council (GC3), Clean Production Action, GreenBlue, National Pollution Prevention Roundtable, EPA Design for the Environment Safer Product Labeling Program, and the Business NGO Working Group – to collaboratively drive the advancement of green chemistry and more sustainable products in the marketplace. These groups and organizations provide a forum for leading businesses all along the supply chain to discuss and identify effective strategies, tactics and alternatives assessment tools for practicing greener chemistry in product development.
• We will be working in the coming years to provide guidance and resources to our suppliers to help advance the elimination of chemicals of concern in the products we sell and make an orderly transition to safer alternatives that are designed using the principles of green chemistry and meet performance and cost requirements.

Safer and more sustainable products means reduced risk, global compliance and meeting or adapting to the trends, needs and demands of downstream users. Everybody wins with safer products; the company and worker that makes them, the retailer that sells them, the consumer that uses them and the environment that inherits them.

Helping customers make sustainable copy & print choices

We are also making it easy for Staples customers to make more sustainable copies. Since March 2008, Staples® Copy & Print Centers have used 50 percent post-consumer recycled FSC-certified paper as the standard offering for high-speed black & white copying. In 2011, 62 percent of copies in the US were produced on paper that was Forest Stewardship Council certified and 25percent were made on paper with recycled content.

Staples offers a variety of free recycling solutions for our customers, including office technology like monitors, computers, and printers, ink and toner cartridges, and rechargeable batteries.

Recycling programs are a win-win-win for our customers, the environment and Staples. Our customers enjoy a convenient and free or low-cost opportunity to responsibly dispose of used technology products; the refurbishing or recycling of products helps reduce the burdens of mining and prevents landfill waste; and, as a company, we build customer loyalty.

Electronic waste recycling

Staples was the first retailer to offer a national electronics recycling program in late 2007. In March of 2011 we evolved this service to make electronics recycling at Staples completely free. Customers can bring in up to six office technology items per day thanks to a new collaboration with HP and our recycler Electronics Recyclers International (ERI). More details about the office technology products we accept are available on our Easy on the Planet site.

To ensure that the electronic products Staples collects from customers are responsibly recycled, we are only working with certified recyclers. ERI is certified both to the e-Stewards Recyclers Program standard and the R2 standard. Both standards seek to ensure that facilities responsibly handle and recycle eWaste. Vendors working with Staples have also certified their facilities to the ISO 14001 environmental management standard.

Staples continues to offer promotional events focused on technology products like mobile phones, printers, and shredders that encourage customers to bring in an old product to be recycled at no charge while earning a coupon toward the purchase of a qualifying new product. We’ve found that these events drive recycling volumes and sales of new products.

Ink and toner cartridge recycling

Staples encourages our customers to take advantage of our ink and toner recycling services and help protect the environment. In addition to reducing waste going to landfills and reusing valuable resources, our retail customers in the United States receive $2 back in Staples Rewards® for any brand of ink or toner cartridge they return to our stores, up to 10 cartridges per customer each month.

Ink and toner recycling is also available to our Staples Advantage® customers. The program allows our drivers to pick up ink and toner cartridges for recycling directly from customers when delivering their office supplies.

Our commitment to reduce waste generation and increase waste diversion applies both to our own operations and to helping our customers do the same. We have programs in place in our stores, distribution centers, and offices to recycle materials such as cardboard, mixed paper, shrink wrap, and pallets, among other things. We also actively seek out new methods for attaining our waste reduction goals. For example, in 2011 we completed the first year of a composting program in our Home Office in the US, whereby we collected more than 126,000 pounds of food waste and compostable kitchen ware for recycling.

This year, we saw a decrease in our waste generation, reflecting our ongoing efforts to reduce the amount of waste generated at our facilities. The percentage of waste that goes to landfill compared to incinerator is approximately the same as in earlier years.

To help understand and reduce waste generation, we launched a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt project in late 2009 to evaluate all sources of waste at our U.S. retail stores. After identifying several waste diversion and minimization opportunities and best practices, we started rolling out the program in a phased approach starting in 2010. In most cases participating stores have been able to reduce the frequency of waste pickup by half and, in many cases recycling volumes have increased as a result. To date, the project has been rolled out to approximately 400 locations, or 25 percent of the retail chain.

In our North American Delivery (NAD) distribution facilities, we’ve continued to focus on waste reduction and diversion in our operations. In 2011, Staples invested in several projects to improve the performance of our recycling programs. Projects such as the reallocation of recycling equipment between facilities and materials, and improvements in the efficiency in recycling diversion processes, have allowed Staples to continue to increase recycling participation and volumes at our NAD facilities. For example:

• When a warehouse facility affiliated with our fulfillment centers was closing, the horizontal baler used at the facility was refurbished and reinstalled in a different fulfillment center. The newly installed equipment will allow the facility to increase the diversion of loose corrugated cardboard from its waste stream; it will also allow the facility to accept recyclable materials from its associated service delivery operations terminals, reducing waste tonnage at these locations as well.
• At another fulfillment center, when a waste audit revealed the waste stream primarily consisted of loose corrugated cardboard, the facility waste compactor was converted to a recycling compactor, and the waste program was downsized to a 10-yard front-load container. As a result, the diversion of corrugated cardboard and the associated revenues have increased significantly, and waste removal expenses have decreased.
• At a third fulfillment center, Staples initiated a scrap metal recycling program for damaged steel cabinets that are unsuitable for salvaging; previously, these cabinets were being landfilled.

We continue to track our progress against the compactor capacity utilization targets and waste diversion metrics we established for our fulfillment centers, and provide monthly reporting to help the fulfillment centers manage their waste and recycling programs. We continue to see improved capacity utilization with 80 percent of our locations achieving 75 percent of their targeted tonnage, and will continue to work with underperforming locations to improve their results.

The Staples energy management program is a comprehensive organization of programs, projects, technologies, and resources. We focus on energy reduction and conservation in our buildings and fleet, employing renewable energy resources, and reducing our carbon impact. We emphasize education and communication about our initiatives, and engage our associates and external stakeholders in our programs.

Partnering with the ENERGY STAR® program

Staples has been an ENERGY STAR® partner since 1999. A joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy, ENERGY STAR helps companies like Staples save money while protecting the environment through the use of energy-efficient products and practices.

EPA’s ENERGY STAR partnership program offers companies a proven energy management strategy that helps in measuring current energy performance, setting goals, tracking savings and rewarding improvements. The EPA provides an innovative energy performance rating system that has been used with more than 270,000 buildings across the country.

Working in partnership with ENERGY STAR, Staples continues to make substantial progress toward sustainability.

• In 2012, Staples was recognized as an ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year for Energy Management for our work in 2011. This is Staples’ second year in a row receiving this award.
• Staples’ ENERGY STAR goal, announced by then Vice Chairman John Mahoney at the 2010 Edison Electric Institute Conference, has been to have 500 facilities designated as ENERGY STAR locations by 2012. We successfully met that goal with 501 facilities designated by the end of the year. Staples has also set a long-range goal to have 50 percent of our active locations ENERGY STAR certified by 2020. At the end of 2011, 16 percent (286) Staples stores, warehouses and distribution centers were awarded the ENERGY STAR rating. At the end of 2012, this number increased to 28 percent (501) facilities.

Reducing our energy consumption

Another focus of Staples’ energy management effort is our commitment to continuously reduce energy consumption. We anchor these efforts in our KWh Reduction Initiative, which incorporates energy waste elimination, energy awareness training, energy usage metrics, outlier identification and store recommissioning as fundamentals of superior energy management.

Under the initiative:

• In 2011, we retrofitted over 75 stores from HID lights to new fluorescent lamps, washed and re-lamped more than 100 stores, and conducted HVAC coil cleans at more than 640 stores. We also implemented several lighting projects in our North American Delivery facilities, involving the installation of fluorescent lamps, photocells, motion sensors, and LED wall packs; the replacement of lower watt equivalent lamps; and removal of HID lighting.
• We implemented a comprehensive energy reduction program for our North American Delivery operations covering a wide range of systems and approaches – such as HVAC and lighting management, energy management systems, battery and material handling, conveyors and motors, renewable energy use, ENERGY STAR® certification, and associate engagement projects. Our efforts saved 9,433 MWh in electricity consumption in 2011, which represents a 3 percent reduction over 2010.
• We continued to expand our store energy controls monitoring and recommissioning program, an initiative to reduce electricity consumption by ensuring that the systems that control energy usage in our stores are operating properly. In 2011, we retrofitted 300 stores with HVAC VFD energy savings control strategies including demand-control ventilation as well as variable frequency drives control on supply fans.
• We also continued to expand our participation in energy consumption demand response programs. We upgraded our stores with operating systems to track energy consumption daily at our locations targeted for ENERGY STAR certification. There are more than 700 stores with the capability to use the smart grid to make daily energy reduction actions, and we will continue to expand these capabilities in 2012. As part of a pilot in Southern California, stores were able to reduce their HVAC and lighting energy consumption by 25 percent or more when reacting to the smart grid.
• We completed a pilot in our Copy & Print Centers to optimize the energy efficiency of our copying and printing machines using standardized control settings.

Finding new ways to save energy

Staples has developed a culture that encourages the discovery of new energy savings opportunities. In 2011, Staples rolled-out the “Energy Reduction Treasure Hunt” process, which identified energy reduction opportunities that will save over 30 percent in energy costs. Many of these improvements have already been implemented.

The treasure hunt program is designed to help Staples identify ways to save energy, improve processes, and seek ways of applying new technologies. The 3-day treasure hunt process focuses on lighting, battery chargers, conveyors, HVAC, and the energy management system. It also incorporates employee engagement elements, such as an energy savings ideas contest, the use of posters to educate associates about the treasure hunt, and a rally with the associates and the energy team.

Following our first successful treasure hunt at a fulfillment center in Orlando, FL—which has resulted in a 19 percent reduction in energy use to date—the energy team has completed treasure hunts at four additional facilities. These hunts have identified potential savings in excess of 20 percent, with implementation of improvements already under way.

Reducing energy intensity

Our goal is to reduce the electrical intensity of our global operations by 25 percent by 2020 from a 2010 baseline, which Staples is pursuing through a proven record of energy-saving strategies executed over consecutive years. Staples’ energy management program has reduced the electricity intensity (kWh per ft2) of our US operations by more than 15.4 percent between 2001 and 2011, saving the company more than $10 million in 2011.

Promoting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)

The LEED® green building certification program promotes sustainable building and development practices though a rating system for building projects that implement strategies for better environmental and health performance. Staples was one of the first companies in the retail industry to participate in the LEED program. To date, we have seven facilities with the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification.

Educating and communicating about our energy management efforts

Staples spearheads many educational and community initiatives to inspire its employees and the members of the wider community to “think green” about saving energy, and develops communication materials to educate our associates about our work and how they can be involved. For example, in 2011, we:

• Held several webinars each month across the US and Canada to reinforce the Staples North American Delivery Energy Reduction program. More than 1,200 employees of Staples distribution facilities participated in these seminars and were provided with ENERGY STAR tools as well as information about best practices for energy reduction.
• During the Treasure Hunts conducted at our North American Delivery facilities, Staples conducted associate energy reduction contests. After an educational rally, associates were asked to seek out ways to reduce energy at their facility, with the top ideas recognized by facility management. The Staples energy management team also provided videos and posters to help communicate the message to turn off lights, check battery levels, turn off conveyors when not in use and other helpful energy reduction tips.
• Developed new marketing and communication materials to increase awareness about our energy management and reduction initiatives. For example, we designed a new Energy Management website, created videos, prepared communications about initiatives like our treasure hunts and NAD energy reduction programs, and gained exposure through internal and external channels.
• Organized its 12th Annual Energy Summit at the Home Office. The Summit brings together energy experts, outside partners, and Staples leadership to share information on what Staples is doing to save energy, how this ties into our business strategy, and lays out plans for the future.
• Held an Earth Day celebration at the Staples Home Office to educate our associates about what Staples is doing to be an energy and sustainability leader, and what they can do in their own lives to adopt sustainable behaviors.
• Continued to use Wattson, our six-foot-tall fluorescent light character, as a symbol of our commitment to superior energy and environmental management, and to help educate employees, customers and school children about the importance of energy conservation.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions

In recent years, Staples has worked diligently to reduce our operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions footprint through our energy reduction and efficiency programs and our green power purchases.

Our current goal is to reduce absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally by 50 percent by 2020, using 2010 as a baseline. Globally, our global carbon emissions (before offsets) decreased 6.7 percent from 2010 to 2011 (from 553,000 MtCO2e to 516,000 MtCO2e). After accounting for offsets, our emissions decreased 55.6 percent (from 412,000 MtCO2e in 2010 to 183,000 MtCO2e after offsets.

In 2011, we purchased 341 million kWh of green power in the U.S., primarily in the form of renewable energy certificates (RECs), the equivalent of more than 50 percent of our national electricity usage (in 2010, we purchased the equivalent of 25 percent). Due to the region in the country where our purchased RECs are generated, and the associated emission factors for RECs in those areas (i.e., higher emission factors because electricity production is more polluting in these regions), the resulting carbon offsets are equivalent to a significant portion of our overall carbon footprint.

As a result, we are demonstrating a sizeable decrease in net carbon emissions (after offsets) from the previous year and are exceeding our goal to reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent. However, we still expect to continue focusing on energy efficiency improvements as an important means to reduce our carbon footprint.

Due to our decrease in absolute emissions, we are also demonstrating a decrease in our greenhouse gas intensity.

For more information about our efforts to reduce GHG emissions, please read Staples’ 2011 response to the Climate Disclosure Project.

Improving our fleet efficiency

We electronically limit the top speed of our U.S. delivery fleet trucks to 60 miles per hour and employ idle management technologies to shut off engines after three minutes of idle time. These and other initiatives have improved fleet fuel economy 18 percent since 2006. In 2011, the fuel economy increased to 10.04 miles per gallon (from 10.01 in 2010). In 2011 we saved more than 620,000 gallons of diesel fuel in part due to the deployment of all-electric trucks in our fleet and reduced associated CO2 emissions by approximately 6,000 tons in the United States.

Electrifying the Staples fleet

Staples has 53 electric delivery trucks making deliveries to our customers in several markets, including Ohio; California; Atlanta, Georgia; Texas; Portland, Oregon; and Kansas City, Missouri. Purchased in 2010, the trucks cost about $30,000 more than equivalent diesel-powered vehicles, but the extra expense will be quickly recovered; in fact, electric vehicles can provide greater savings to businesses than to consumers compared with diesel or gasoline models, in both fuel and maintenance costs. Staples was also awarded Federal Stimulus money through the Clean Cities Coalition, which covers 50 percent of the actual cost of alternatively powered vehicles.

Each of the electric delivery trucks runs a daily route of less than 70 miles before recharging at night. Per mile driven, our electric trucks produce approximately 50 percent fewer emissions than our diesel trucks when taking into account emissions generated from electricity used for vehicle charging.

Staples continues to evaluate additional fleet efficiency initiatives, including:

• Hybrid vehicle testing in partnership with Eaton and BAE Systems, as well as Hino Motors
• Installation of advanced idle-reduction technology
• Engine horsepower reduction to minimize fuel consumption
• Transmission change-over to a fuel-efficient double-overdrive transmission for all new trucks to reduce engine rpms and fuel consumption
• Deployment of Compressed Natural Gas trucks in markets where they can be supported by fueling infrastructure

In 2011, Staples was recognized by the South Coast Air Quality Management District as a Clean Air Award Winner in the category of Advancement of Air Pollution Technology. Staples was also recognized as a Charter Partner of the US Department of Energy’s National Clean Fleets Partnership, part of the Clean Cities program.