Imperial Dade, Norton Shores was Awarded for the 2023 Michigan Battle of the Buildings Competition in the Warehouse/Distribution Category
This year we celebrated 10 years of the Michigan Energy Summit and 10 years of amazing projects and energy efficiency initiatives! Over the past 10 years, we have had a total of 149 winners from 75 different organizations, representing 264 Michigan cities. Since the program's inception in 2014, our competitors have redirected over $100 million of utility costs back to their bottom line and avoided almost 550,000 metric tons of CO2e. Over 272 million square feet of Michigan commercial real estate competed against each other in 2023 in this biggest loser-styled energy competition. The 2023 Michigan Battle of the Buildings competitors saved $7.4 million in energy costs and avoided 47,178 metric tons of CO2e which is equivalent to the carbon sequestered by 55,514 acres of US forests in one year! This year we had 11 industry-specific category winners. We are so excited to announce Imperial Dade in Norton Shores as the 2023 Michigan Battle of the Buildings winner in the Warehouse/Distribution Category!
Originally founded in 1936 under the organization name Nichols, the company was one of the largest independent paper, packaging, and sanitary supply distributors in the Great Lakes region. For decades, they provided products that clean, protect, and package for the industrial, education, healthcare, building service, and hospitality markets. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the ways in which we lived our lives and accomplished even mundane, daily tasks. The pandemic altered how people viewed hygiene and safety in the public spaces, forcing change in commercial buildings and businesses.
In November of 2021 Imperial Dade acquired the company formerly known as Nichols, a match that supported their mutual missions of putting their customer’s needs and wishes at the forefront of their business. Imperial Dade is the leading independently owned and operated distributor of food packaging supplies, commercial cleaning supplies, paper products, commercial cleaning equipment, and industrial packaging in the United States.
Imperial Dade saw a 10.17% reduction in energy usage with the upgrade of six thermostats (Café, First Floor Main, First Floor Offices, Second Floor Main, Accounting/Second Floor Offices, Training Center). The thermostats, which were originally installed in 2009, were inefficient compared to newer technology. This brought forward the need for the upgrade, which was accomplished in March of 2023 with a total cost of $2,300. Not only are the new thermostats easy to control via the Resideo App, but the organization also locked four out of six of the thermostats to better control the temperature and efficiency (the ones that were locked were ones that had been changed on a regular basis). Each Thermostat is set to “Cool” for the summer once the temperatures remain high enough to require AC. Additionally, each Thermostat is set to “Dual” (Heat/Cool) mode for the remainder of the year- a big feature the organization was looking for when considering the new technology. This project was pretty simple so an evaluation and suggestions from our HVAC service provider was used to evaluate moving forward.
The organization has been working to improve their building’s energy efficiency since 2009 when they renovated an existing building to move to; later in 2010 achieving LEED O+M for the first time. Since then they have done two lighting upgrades, which has helped them significantly. The obvious next project for them was the update of their thermostat technology, which was done following an evaluation and suggestions from their HVAC service provider for moving forward. Imperial Dade’s Administrative Assistant and their Director of Distribution who is responsible for the warehouse and overall maintenance of the building were instrumental in the accomplishment of this project.
When asked what it means to Imperial Dade to be a winner in the Michigan Battle of the Buildings competition they responded: “We have been working on energy efficiency for more than 15 years and it becomes very difficult to continue to find projects that also have a good return on investment. So this simple accomplishment is very rewarding. We have been involved in Michigan Battle of the Buildings since it began, we were a winner one year and then I believe came in 2nd or 3rd in a following year – never thought we had a chance to win again because so much competition with significant projects compared to this one.” (Renae Hesselink LEED AP BD+C, Vice President of Sustainability at Imperial Dade)
We were excited to celebrate Imperial Dade’s accomplishments in energy efficiency at our annual Michigan Energy Summit on May 8, 2024 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they were awarded in the Warehouse/Distribution Category! This marks their 3rd award in the competition.