As eBay’s newest building designed to LEED standards, we have integrated sustainable design features throughout the facility – staying true to our commitment to operate responsibly and sustainably in the communities that our teammates call home while providing an outstanding workplace experience. In addition to offering preferred parking for low-emitting and fuel-efficient vehicles, the building is adjacent to a FrontRunner commuter rail station and uses power entirely from renewable sources. The building has large windows that allow for abundant natural light and incredible views of the Wasatch Mountains and nearby Jordan River. Additionally, the building’s innovative infrastructure makes efficient use of water, reducing the burden on the municipal water supply by 35% percent.

In the new, expanded facility, our teammates will deliver on our commitment to create experiences our customers love. Team members can also take advantage of fantastic onsite perks such as a full-service cafe, fitness center, coffee shop, and indoor bike storage areas!

Our efforts to green our local footprint and provide meaningful impact in the communities where we operate don’t end there. Today, we also kicked-off our eBay Utah Summer of Giving program with a 5K run and one-mile walk for teammates and our non-profit partners including the Utah Food Bank, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and many others. These events signify our commitment to maintaining responsible and sustainable operations in our community.  In 2012 alone, eBay teammates and their friends and family in Utah contributed approximately 9,000 hours of service in the community. This continues our 14-year history in the state of working to build a better Utah.

As our business rapidly evolves, we will continue to ensure that our commitment to enabling greener commerce, powering charitable giving and fostering economic opportunity runs throughout everything we do. Not only does our newest facility represent our pledge to green our operations, it also demonstrates our commitment to investing in and growing our economic presence in the state. From our new home in Utah, eBay teammates will help change the world.

Check out some of the photos of the building and today’s events, and stay tuned for more updates on the Summer of Giving and work by our Salt Lake City Green and GIVE teams!

The program itself is explored in a blog post from eBay’s Green Team. Since the listings will include traded-in equipment that PGA Professionals have accepted at their physical stores, buyers can consider buying used equipment to lighten the impact on their wallets and on the planet.

Whether you’re purchasing a club to complete your set or just some balls for a day on the course, the new site is designed to be a one-stop destination for authentic, affordable golf equipment. Get your game on!

The announcement was the subject of a feature article in the NY Times by James Glanz, who wrote:

“It will be the first major tech company to use alternative power as a primary source for energy-hungry data centers, although the new center will connect to the electricity grid for backup. Environmental groups have issued a series of rebukes to Internet companies because of their heavy reliance on coal-fired power to run their centers.”

This initiative demonstrates eBay’s core values — to impact positive change in the world — and reflects the passion and dedication of the eBay Green Team, which includes employee volunteers from virtually every business unit in the company.

In today’s press release, the company reports: “This initiative marks eBay’s fifth and largest renewable energy installation. eBay currently operates a 650 kilowatt (kW) solar array and a 500 kW Bloom fuel cell installation at its San Jose headquarters, as well as a 100 kW solar array at its Denver data center. In April of this year, the company installed a 665 kW solar array spanning 72,000 square feet atop its existing, LEED® certified Utah data center.”

eBay President and CEO John Donahoe views the Bloom Energy project as a key part of eBay’s ongoing commitment to greener, cleaner technology.

“We are embracing disruptive energy technology and designing it into our core data center energy architecture,” he commented. “Running our data centers primarily on reliable, renewable energy, we intend to shape a future for commerce that is more environmentally sustainable at its core.”

Enter eBay Green Driving Contest
Who doesn’t love the smell of a new car? Enter for your chance to win a Toyota Prius, and learn how to save money at the pump with the wide variety of unique, green vehicles available on eBay Green Driving. eBay Green Driving is the latest in a series of programs and experiences designed to help eBay buyers and sellers make more sustainable shopping decisions. It offers user-friendly tools and resources, as well as eBay’s unique green vehicle and parts inventory, in a single location, to help people determine the best ways to “green” their daily driving routines – including information on electric vehicles, hybrids, clean diesels, compressed natural gas and ethanol vehicles, as well as high-MPG gasoline vehicles.

Further News
+ Take a look at this music video and get shopping.
+ Does mobile commerce encourage laziness?
+ A winning social commerce strategy: Don’t ask how, ask why
+ Ten habits of global online shoppers.

Posts From the Week
+ eBay Sellers Go To Washington
+ The Magento Imagine eCommerce Conference Kicks off in Las Vegas

Looking Back on eBay Ink
April 28, 2011: eBay sponsor Shazam App for Android giving users unlimited tagging. Shazam updated its Android App today bringing unlimited tagging sponsored by eBay for all “Shazamers” using the Shazam Free App and “Shazam Friends”, a real-time feed with the App of songs that Facebook friends have tagged. This essentially creates a continuously updating list for Shazamers to discover and share new music with their friends. The deal with eBay means that instead of just five free tags in a month, users can now tag as much music as they want between now and January 1st, 2012. This is the first exclusive App sponsorship deal agreed by eBay anywhere in the world, and the first time Shazam has selected a partner to provide free services to their customers.

eBay InkWeekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.

Here at the eBay Green Team, we believe the greenest product is the one that already exists. And we’ve discovered this also applies to the very buildings our employees work in. Intuitively, it makes sense – tearing down and rebuilding both costs more and wastes more resources than remodeling a building already standing. Recognizing that there’s a lot of sustainability work to be done without a wrecking ball, the U.S. Green Building Councilstarted a certification for Existing Buildings in 2008 (in addition to their LEED® certifications for new construction, which we’ve achieved at the Gold level for our ground-up building projectsMint and Topaz).

But what does this mean at our original eBay headquarters? Can we take what’s existing and make it green? That’s exactly what my colleagues and I at eBay’s Workplace Resources strive to do here in San Jose, one floor at a time.

So how did our LEED® AP certified designer green our new space? Let’s count the ways…

1. Paint: we used no- or low-VOC paint that improves the indoor air quality for our employees
2. Carpet: Just like in new Tel Aviv campus, we use Interface carpet tiles that have very high recycled content and are recyclable through Interface’s own ReEntry program
3. Furniture: Desks are all by Steelcase, and chairs by Herman Miller chairs - selected for their highly sustainable manufacturing processes and their use of high recycled-content materials
4. Lighting: Thanks to our lighting retrofit last year, the lighting is already energy efficient!
5. Motion Sensors: In the conference rooms, we’ve connected the motion sensors that are already in place to turn out the lights, to the air conditioning systems since it doesn’t make sense to cool an empty room.
6. Daylighting: Our cubicle walls are lowered so employees can get as much natural light as possible (it also makes it easier to talk with each other and collaborate)
7. Video Conferencing: We’ve increased this technology in our new conference rooms, which makes it easier for our employees to be green and skip a business trip all together.

And all these green features are in a layout designed to help our innovative employees brainstorm the next Big Idea. We’ve upped the ante on collaborative spaces: one-on-one private rooms, soft seating, project lounges with dry erase boards and LED TV projectors, as well as small meeting tables in the rows for ad hoc discussions.

The eBay Whitman campus in San Jose is at the heart of our company’s history. We want our employee workspaces to bring together and reflect all our values, including principles of sustainability, innovation, and creativity. It’s a work in progress – 3 floors done and many more to go – but we know that small actions can make a big difference in the world.

In their first 6 months, our small Tel Aviv Green Team has already accomplished quite a bit!

• In spite of a definite lack of a citywide recycling infrastructure, they launched their own recycling program for the office
• They got rid of bottled water in their vending machines, and instead have reusable water bottles readily available throughout the office
• Beyond cutting back on the number of printers in the office, all printers now default to print double-sided
• Instead of disposable utensils and dishes, they have reusable kitchenware for the office – and on those occasions where disposable options are required, they make sure to use biodegradable
• To encourage employees to use alternative transportation, they designated a biking room at the office and recently joined a bike sharing program which has a station just a few blocks away

Our Green Team leader in Tel Aviv, Maly Bitterman, has a goal for the second half of the year to grow the Green Team and develop a yearly plan for their internal programs, as well as plan activities within the community. She wants ARS to be a green leader for companies – doing what is right and making Israel a better place to live for all its citizens.

As far as the new office itself, a lot went into making sure that it was built with the environment in mind. Our Workplace Resources team designed the space so that there was plenty of natural light throughout the office in order to reduce dependence on artificial lighting. With lots of floor to ceiling windows, light is able to penetrate deep into the office. By using lower partitions on the furniture systems, they were able to achieve a bright and airy office throughout.

The flooring selection also was considered within the sustainable goals for the office, using Interface carpet tiles which have very high recycled content and are recyclable through Interface’s own ReEntry program. Desks are all by Steelcase, andHerman Miller chairs are used within the office – both companies are well known for highly sustainable manufacturing processes and their use of high recycled-content materials.

The team installed T5 fluorescent lamp fixtures and LED lights to save energy and get the best lighting for the open office. Motion detectors were also installed in all meeting rooms so that when the rooms are not in use, lights turn off and the A/C isn’t cooling an empty room.

The Green Team looks forward to seeing more great things coming from our team in Israel. They are off to an amazing start, are now full steam ahead, and have a gorgeous, green office out of which to operate.

As in Omaha, biking to work in Salt Lake City, especially during the wet springs, chilly falls and snowy winters can be tough. It definitely takes a deep commitment level to cycle year round. Gibran has that commitment level, and it has only grown since he was a young boy when he began riding along with his Mom as car support for his Dad, a competitive cyclist. Cycling is something he says he’s always been passionate about, but his passion has put him on a bike saddle more than in a car seat for about the past 10 years now. During his collegiate years, he even began racing competitively.

Breaking form from our previous two Bike Month employee cycling features, we’re giving you a straight question and answer session with Gibran himself.

Between Gibran Borja and JD Norton of the eBay Green Team

JD Norton: What got you into cycling in the first place, Gibran?

Gibran Borja: A couple of reasons why I got into cycling:

a) Riding my bike helped me complete errands for my mother in a more timely fashion
b) Watching Lance Armstrong & Dave Zabriskie during the Tour de France really inspired me.
c) Cycling has been a great tool I’ve used to support charities and drive change.

JD Norton: Do you commute to work daily? If so, how long is your daily commute?

Gibran Borja: Weather and air quality permitting (the Salt Lake Valley has some of the worst air in the nation for several months throughout the winter due to the inversion); I try to commute to work as often as possible. It ends up being a good 14 miles one way. Those who sit next to me at work, and myself for that matter, can’t thank eBay enough for providing us with an awesome gym that includes showers.

JD Norton: What is one common misconception about cycling that you’d like to clear up with non-cyclists or those who think cycling to work is too much of a hassle?

Gibran Borja: Sporting the spandex is not a requirement when commuting to work, or cycling at all for that matter… although I certainly prefer to do so. Moreover, preparation is key. I get everything ready to go (meals, office attire, etc) the night before. Lastly, Utah law requires a 5 foot cushion between motor vehicles and “vulnerable road users” such as bicyclists.

JD Norton: What other cycling activities do you do outside of work?

Gibran Borja: Other cycling activities I enjoy are participating in local charity rides like the MS150 and several others that I’ll be riding in California this year: Levi’s GranFondo and SLO GranFondo. I am also a USA Cycling license rider and compete in local Crits, Hill Climbs, and TimeTrial races. Volunteering with SLC Bike Collective is also a great time!

JD Norton: What do you do internally to support cycling culture within eBay?

Gibran Borja: SLC MS150 Team Paine members (team named after our dear friend Tim Paine) and I have been organizing various events to raise funds for MS, such as bake sales, giveaways, sprint races, etc. In addition, the team has found ways to promote the SLC Green Team and GIVE Team brand and initiatives in the community. Moreover, receiving the support and help from our local events group on some other initiative last year was tremendous. I have also volunteered to help with our local Bike to Work Week activities for several years now.

JD Norton: Share a secret with us about cycling in SLC that people may not know.

Gibran Borja: Pro cycling riders Dave Zabriskie and Levi Leipheimer have been known to show up for some of the local races. In addition, Salt Lake City currently holds Silver recognition as Bike-Friendly City and 2011 Tour of Utah jumped toUCI 2.1!!!

JD Norton: Rumor has it, you make sure to try and bike in all cities that you visit when you travel. Tell us more. Do you pack your bike? Borrow one? …..

Gibran Borja: I’ve been lucky enough to connect with cyclist in visited cities who have been gracious enough to trust me with their bike—one small fact I “forget” to allude to is the relationship my bike and garage door have developed recently.

I bring all my gear – pedals, helmet, etc. – and my friends provide the bike. Last year during eBay on Location in San Jose, I connected with one of our VP’s who is part of a San Jose Cycling Club. Prior to any eBay meetings in the morning, and after running into my Manager and other co-workers in the hotel lobby on my way out wearing my spandex attire (hopefully, that didn’t hinder my career opportunities), I connected with my friend and rode in the beautiful city of San Jose and even climbed Sierra Rd, a popular climb on the Tour of California. Any San Jose employees interested in riding when I’m in town, please let me know.

JD Norton: Anything else you’d like people to know?

Gibran Borja: Other activities I truly enjoy are ciclismo, biking, riding on my saddle, and pedaling squares (JD: that’s all “code” for cycling in case you didn’t catch that). I actually do enjoy doing other things besides cycling, like spending time with Lindsey, my loving wife of ten years, and two future pro female riders/daughters, Lexie (5 years old) and Halle (14 months old). In addition, I also enjoy volunteering with my family and with the SLC GIVE Team (a branch of the eBay Foundation).

Luckily for us, Dave brought that earth friendly enthusiasm and knowledge with him when he joined PayPal over five years ago. His passion for biking to work has been contagious. From a very modest start, Dave has grown the Omaha commuter group to 25-30 consistent riders who logged nearly 10,000 miles commuting to PayPal in 2010.

The success is owed to Dave’s laid back, “help anyone” attitude. Dave has a wealth of knowledge about bike commuting and routinely makes trips to local bike shops with would-be bike commuters to give them input about bike purchases and to help them assemble commuter packs with bike to work necessities. He watches eBay and Craigslist closely to assist people looking to get into bike commuting on a budget, and he’s even been known to make an after hours run back to the office to help second shift and overnight team commuters repair a flat. Lucky for them, Dave had the foresight to buy extra tubes for all of the tire sizes and types represented on the bike commuter team so we’d have them available on site, complete with floor pump, for these situations.

Dave’s commitment to biking to work got PayPal the first Bike Friendly Business designation in the eBay corporate family. He even braved the bureaucratic paperwork to make sure eBay and PayPal could cash in on government reimbursements for bike commuting. Along the way, Dave has also arranged bike maintenance days on campus, maintenance seminars, and has even raffled off five commuter bikes to employees. This effort is why he was the first Bike Omaha Commuter Challenge team leader award winner in the history of the competition.

“The most distinct memory I have of Dave in our nearly four years working together is a wretched day last summer when storm clouds moved in right after he set out on his ride home. Not being nearly a brave as Dave, I had driven to work that day and I worriedly tracked his route home with the expectation of picking him up and putting his bike in the back of my car. The conditions of strong winds, sheets of driving rain, and a possible tornado didn’t deter Dave though. When I found him on the trail he had the biggest smile on his face – the kind of smile you normally see on a kid right after they get an ice cream cone. He was totally in his element, commuting home on his bike on a stormy day”, says Kasey Hesse, our Omaha Green Team Leader.

Do you have a passionate biking group at your own workplace? Tell us about it!

Paul started out as we all did – cycling in his youth solely for fun and to get around during the summer. Then, as is almost bound to happen once we enter high school and receive that coveted drivers license, biking to work and school became an afterthought. However, unlike most of us, Paul’s cycling story didn’t end there. Just before entering college, Paul Metz went on a bike tour across New England – and maybe that was the spark that later ignited the cycling fire he has today. In college, Paul started pedaling a lot more, as most college students do when class, food, and friends are all within a 5 mile radius. Once out of college and married, Paul and his wife went to being a one car family – so out of necessity, he started cycling again. At first it was only a couple miles, and then it was nearly 5 miles just to catch a carpool ride into work, and then it started to become somewhat of an obsession, turning into riding nearly 25-30 miles roundtrip to work on a daily basis – uphill both ways in 4 feet of snow (okay, not really, but isn’t that always what our dads would have lead us to believe?).

Simply because he loves cycling and wants to share it with fellow PayPalians, Paul proactively created a cycling webpage as well as a cycling email list for employees to use in order to connect for lunchtime rides, find information on biking to work, or even share general bike knowledge with one another. He also created an unofficial bike share program comprised of 8 bikes on our North eBay campus that people can check-out and use for lunch rides or to run errands during the day. Some folks have even used the bikes for extended periods of time going back and forth from work.

As part of this completely grassroots bike sharing program, Paul has mobilized a team to staff an “Energizer” station for the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition as part of Bike to Work Day here in San Jose (May 12th this year). To support other cyclists, Paul and his group of dedicated employees will spend the morning passing out Bike to Work bags and “fuel” (bananas, water, etc) to those who choose to ride to work.

A true eBay Green Team-er, employees like Paul Metz who advocate and engage with their peers about their own eco friendly ideas are key to making any company a real green workplace. Paul’s enthusiasm for cycling has encouraged other eBay employees to take part – arguably much more effectively than any pointed internal marketing campaign ever could. We’re lucky to have Paul inspiring us to bike to work, and doing his part to make eBay and PayPal great, green places to work.

Many of our eBay Green Teams around the world planned 2011 Earth Day activities and we hope that many of you also got involved in even the smallest of ways, whether you are Green Team members or not. We all live on this planet and we all need to do our part to be be environmentally responsible..

What exactly went down around the world on Earth Day, you may ask?

San Jose, California

The Green Team hosted a Nissan Leaf test drive event on April 19th at our PayPal campus. It was also commuter education week, hosted by our Workplace Resources team. On Earth Day itself, the WPR team rolled out yet another part of our Zero Waste for Green Space program – replacing all disposable utensils at both of our campuses with silverware!

Omaha, Nebraska

Leading up to, during and beyond Earth Day 2011, Omaha’s eBay Green Team plans to continue many of the great sustainability programs they have introduced in the past year and also look for ways to expand and introduce more great initiatives. The Community Garden Project continues to go strong, with 40 plots and 80 employees represented. Named aBike Friendly Business by the League of American cyclists, Omaha’s eBay Green Team is planning to continue an awesome cycling tradition and give away their 5th bike to another lucky employee as part of Bike to Work Week this year. Last but not least, employees who participate in the Nebraska State Parks initiative will receive free State Park passes.

Chennai, India

Our Green Team colleagues in Chennai, India, hosted a sapling drive on Earth Day. Our Chennai team has been rigorously greening not only their own center, but also the community in which they operate, planting saplings at a local schools and surrounding areas.

Dreilinden, Germany

The Dreilinden eBay Green Team kicked-off their Earth Day 2011 events with a hazardous waste collection initiative – collecting old paint, eWaste, batteries and all types of other things you can’t just throw out with the garbage or put in a recycling bin. They also collected unwanted working electronics and are collaborating with a local eBay seller who will in turn resell them on the site for them. The money received will be put towards funding a green initiative project in Dreilinden.

Dublin, Ireland

Dublin not only planned Earth Day 2011 events, but also Sustainable Energy Week, which falls the week before Earth Day in the EU. Since eBay’s Dublin office is so close to a major roadway, a great deal of litter unfortunately finds its way onto the campus. To fight back, the Dublin eBay Green team hosted a big Earth Day clean-up with the goal of re-beautifying the grounds of this gorgeous office.

Salt Lake City, Utah

The SLC eBay Green Team hosted an open house event the Friday before Earth Day, and on Earth Day had an eWasterecycling drive. Employees were encouraged to begin carpooling to work in order to take advantage of the newly expanded eBay Green Team priority parking program. The SLC team also has big plans once again to host awesome Bike to Work Week events next month. They are also proud to be participating in a big way for the 3rd year in a row at the Salt Lake CityLive Green Eco Fair.

eBay Green Team Preferred Parking Spots for employees who carpool to work 

Scottsdale, Arizona

Our newborn Scottsdale eBay Green Team chipped in to help start recruiting new Green Team members at our newest PayPal office in Chandler, AZ. Chandler opened last month with 500 employees and has plans to ramp up to 2,000 employees by mid-next year. A huge thank you to our Scottsdale team members for helping to grow the Green Team family!

Connecticut (StubHub)

Our StubHub team also launched a big recruiting effort for Earth Day 2011 and also launched a Green Team site on our internal employee intranet. Among the goals of the eBay site are to have an area for people to trade/sell items with one another to help extend the life of the products they use each and every day. As you know, the eBay Green Team believes that the greenest product is the one that already exist, so we all should do what we can to extend the life of each and every product we own.

—

Whew! As you can see, all of our global eBay Green Teams had a busy Earth Day 2011. We wish we could share everything with you, but that would make for one really long blog post.

Regardless of what you did for Earth Day 2011, at work or at home, we hope you will take the pledge to take at least one little green initiative in your life in the year to come. While it’s great to celebrate on Earth Day, it’s what you do on the other 364 days that can add up to create real change.

Here are some simple go green ideas:

• Join the eBay Green Team
• Use one less paper towel each day, or better yet, use a sponge for spills around the house.
• Unplug something. Anything. If it’s plugged in and you aren’t using it – well, it’s just sucking up energy.
• Take the train, bus or carpool one day each week – saves you money and saves the air.
• Use a porcelain mug for coffee instead of a paper cup.
• Print double-sided.
• Wash your laundry in cold water.
• Did we mention, join the eBay Green Team?

How did you celebrate Earth Day Green Team-ers! Please Share!