On April 24^th, Zappos hosted its second annual Earth Day Event in our Henderson HQ! We had 17 new and returning vendors join the Zappos LEAF Team in creating an awesome event to highlight how easy it is to go green.

Over 450 Zapponians hung out with us, enjoyed the sunshine, and learned about sustainable initiatives. Similar to last year, our metric for success is to teach each Zapponian at least one new eco-habit that makes a difference. Whether it is to use a reusable shopping bag or to buy brands that utilize recycled materials, every little habit or lifestyle change helps keep our planet a wonderful place to live.

We had all sorts of educational activities and giveaways for our employees. Our favorite: Repurpose America brought a giant earth mural painted by a local artist and hundreds of Zapponians used paint pens to leave messages of support for the planet by signing the canvas. The mural will be hung up inside the new downtown Zappos campus for all to see.

Special thanks to all of our friends who participated this year. Giant high fives to Zappos’ own DJ Ultra for bringing the beats and to our awesome Bistro team for grilling corn on the cob. We’ll see you next year at our 3^rd Earth Day party in downtown Vegas!

A Big "Thank You" goes out to these very special friends who made this Earth Day event possible:

Keen

prAna

Klean Kanteen

ChicoBags

EcoLUNCHBoxes

Whole Foods

Republic Services

Vegas Roots

Springs Preserve

Sierra Nevada

Vessel

BottleHood

Friends of Nevada Wilderness

A1 Organics

Repurpose America

Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC)

EnergyFit Nevada

Check out more awesome news from LEAF on Twitter: @ZapposLEAF and on Instagram: #zappos_leaf

Happy Earth Day, friends! Zappos will be celebrating Earth Day this Wednesday by hosting our second annual Earth Day Event at our Henderson campus. In preparation for the event, we asked Zappos parents to enter their kids into our first Children’s Art Contest with a theme of, “How I care for the planet.”

We really want to highlight and recognize these kids for doing such an amazing job! Our kids are so important to us and are the reasons why we’re trying to leave the planet a better place, so that they can enjoy it the way we did. They are also the ones who will most likely solve many of the planet’s environmental challenges. After receiving the art entries, it was awesome to see how much our kids know about the planet and how to care for it! Show of hands: Did your child teach you and your family how to recycle?! Yep, ours too!

We’re so proud of all the kiddos that participated!! Below are the winners of the first Children’s Art Contest - Earth Day 2013. Each winner received a fabulous eco-friendly gift basket to help them continue to care for the planet.

Winners from ages 5 and under:

Winners from ages 6-10:

Winners from ages 11-14:

Check out more awesome news from LEAF on Twitter: @ZapposLEAF and on Instagram: #zappos_leaf

Zappos was thrilled to get down and dirty this month at the biannual Las Vegas Wash “Green Up”. Members of the Zappos LEAF team joined more than 350 other community members (boy scouts, girl scouts, students, church groups and businesses) to plant 3,000 trees and shrubs in a 7-acre area along the banks of the wash. The sun was shining, water was flowing and adults and kids were chatting about the importance of preserving this spectacular oasis inside the Las Valley.

The Las Vegas Wash Coordination Committee stated, “The efforts of these volunteers have created much-needed habitat for wildlife living along the Las Vegas Wash. Re-vegetation also has helped stabilize the wash’s banks, reducing erosion and improving water quality into Lake Mead, the source of the Las Vegas Valley's drinking water.”

See you all next fall at the 22^nd Las Vegas Wash “Green Up”!

Zappos is excited to continue its commitment to cleaner highways by renewing its partnership with Adopt A Highway for the ninth year.  When Zappos moved to Las Vegas in 2005, we were only able to sponsor three miles of highway. But every year since then, we’ve been able to adopt more miles with Adopt a Highway. Now in 2013, Zappos sponsors 158 miles of highway in the Las Vegas valley and we’re on the waiting list for 20 more miles! We are excited to say we’re the second largest sponsor of highway cleanup in the nation!

Adopt a Highway crews clean the right shoulders of these sponsored highways up to two times a month. In 2012, 9,300 bags of garbage were collected along the roadsides, equaling roughly 40 tons of waste. We don’t even want to imagine how things would be without this amazing program! Needless to say, we’re proud to continue our support of keeping Nevada’s highways clean.

Photos courtesy of Adopt a Highway

Zappos saved tons of building materials and assets during the renovation of the old city hall building to donate to Habitat for Humanity Las Vegas. 125 fluorescent light fixtures, 85 sinks, 60 solid doors, 50 toilets, 20 water fountains, and much, much more will now go toward renovating homes in Las Vegas. Our awesome construction crew at Penta Building Group carefully removed the fixtures and assets so that they could be reused.

Randy Corwin, Area Field Manager for Penta, said, “I’m proud of our entire team. From the start, we were focused and committed to reach our waste diversion goals. The donation by Zappos helped us exceed these goals. And the best part is, ‘It’s the right thing to do.’”

Habitat for Humanity’s crews spent three days loading box trucks full of the assets. Tracy Gray, Donations Relations Coordinator for Habitat for Humanity Las Vegas, said, “Habitat for Humanity Las Vegas is very happy to receive these materials. This donation fits in perfectly with our ReStore motto “ReUse, ReCycle, ReNew, ReBuild.” 

Our Zappos development team is thrilled that these assets will be used in upcoming renovation projects, and others will be sold to support Habitat for Humanity’s mission to provide affordable, sustainable housing in Las Vegas.

Zappos is composting! It’s true; we have partnered with A1 Organics to collect and compost the food scraps and paper products that are generated in the Z-Bistro. For the last few months, we have been testing the compost collection system inside the kitchen where food scraps from daily prep are separated and collected for composting. Recently, we extended the reach of the collection to include the leftover food scraps, napkins, and paper plates from the dining room. More than 1,000 meals are served a day - this makes for a lot of scraps!

Just to be clear, we are not composting on-site since we don’t have a worm farm out back (but how cool would that be!). Rather, we are sending our compostable materials to A1’s facility north of Las Vegas. A1 has over 50 acres of land dedicated to making 24,000 tons of mulch and compost a year from the food scraps collected from Zappos, supermarkets and Strip casinos, and green waste from many local landscaping companies and golf courses. After 90 days of processing, the mulch and compost returns to the city and is sold at local nurseries – a great life cycle story.

In typical Zappos style, we had a party to celebrate our composting initiative. The day-long “compost party” featured education from LEAF and A1 Organics and muddy cup treats from the Z-Bistro kitchen team. Mmm, tasty!

A few weeks ago, LEAF had the opportunity to recycle something a little less conventional than plastic or paper; we recycled soap! Sounds strange, yes, but once you learn where the finished product goes to, you might think a little differently. 

Clean the World is a non-profit organization that collects discarded soap, shampoo, and conditioner from hotels and resorts around the country. Clean the World sanitizes the soap at their facilities and then repurposes it by giving it to communities in need. By partnering with hotels and resorts from all 50 states, and even some Canadian provinces, Clean the World has eliminated 2.2 million pounds of hotel waste. Wow! 

But, why recycle soap? Soap is powerful enough that it can reduce the effects of two very common and fatal diseases: acute respiratory infection and diarrheal disease, which are responsible for taking hundreds of thousands of lives annually.

Once the discarded soap has been cleaned, sanitized and rid of all pathogens, the product is then donated to countries all around the world in efforts to help save lives. So far, more than 11 million bars of soap have been donated to more than 55 countries! Through the use of the soap donated by Clean the World, these at-risk communities are able to continue living their lives with a little less worry and a lot more smiles!

To help this amazing cause, LEAF visited the Clean the World facility in Las Vegas to volunteer our time and hands. Our task for the afternoon was to separate the little amenity bottles that were collected at resorts such as Caesars Palace, Venetian, Wynn and Planet Hollywood. And as you can tell by the pictures, there were thousands of bottles at the warehouse!

The LEAF team had a great time sorting the bottles while music was jamming in the background. We've decided to add this outing to our Zappos monthly volunteer events calendar (called “Karma Adventures”), so that many more Zapponians can contribute to this awesome cause!

Last week in San Francisco, VERGE 2012 brought all sorts of technology and sustainability-focused professionals together to discuss the potential opportunities for technological advancements in energy, buildings and transportation.

Zappos’ very own CEO Tony Hsieh took center stage to deliver a stellar keynote address to hundreds of the professionals that attended the conference. His message was simple but packed full of inspiration: transform downtown Las Vegas into the “most community-focused large city in the world.” Tony highlighted the current efforts to bring technology, education, and small business development together in a way that creates “collisions, community and co-learning.”

Photo courtesy of Greenbiz.com

In Tony’s keynote address, there was also underlying messages of urban density, urban connectivity, and urban sustainability. By encouraging people, including Zappos employees, to move downtown, Tony hopes downtown Las Vegas will surpass 100 residents per acre: a population density that creates successful and sustainable cities. In Triumph of the City, a book that inspired Tony’s goal of revitalizing downtown Las Vegas, Edward Glaeser says, “The average suburban household consumes 27% more electricity than the average urban household.” The more residents that move and work downtown, the more our energy and resource consumption will decrease, as well as our carbon emissions from reduced car travel.  (Which the LEAF team couldn’t be more supportive of!)

In the fall of 2013, Zappos will move from the suburbs of Green Valley to the hustle and bustle of downtown Las Vegas. Modeled after NYU’s campus, our new home will blend with the surrounding neighborhoods and become part of the Las Vegas community.  We couldn’t be more excited for this new Zappos chapter!