That’s how Caterpillar, Inc. just chopped its energy bill by 46% — to save $800,000 a year — by improving the energy efficiency of its headquarters in Peoria, IL. The company’s reduced electricity and natural gas demand translates into credit for reducing GHG emissions.

To do it, Caterpillar redesigned its electrical systems by adding:

• direct digital controls throughout the building to control 800 newly created temperature zones and prevent one-size-fits-all temperatures
• variable-speed fans to the HVAC system
• a seasonal schedule for operating building systems
• motion detectors to turn off lights in unused areas, and
• a night setback to turn off lights and lower office temperatures.

Caterpillar also:

• reduced water use 50% by adding a new irrigation system to minimize landscaping consumption
• developed a green cleaning program to use only environmentally friendly chemicals
• adopted a pest management program that uses the least toxic methods to control insects
• enhanced its recycling program to reduce environmental impacts of materials it uses, and
• conducts regular audits to continuously seek out new waste-reduction opportunities.

Result: Caterpillar’s HQ is the first building in Illinois (outside of Chicago) to earn a gold certification from EPA’s LEED green building program.

Bonus: Wondering how to improve your LEED score?  Consider an online green building education course to learn design, construction, and maintenance techniques used by the pros.

It just takes a bit of planning to create a green office.

That’s how State Farm real estate agent Christine Moscantolo obtained a silver level, green business certification. She worked with Green Impact Solutions, Inc., to identify green products to use when she renovated her office in Allentown, PA.

Once the plan was in place, the transformation into a green office proved to be something that any office in any business setting can adopt. Moscantolo:

• used paints that don’t contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during the renovation of her office
• purchased only computers and appliances that are certified by EPA’s Energy Star program
• selected office plants that eat VOC vapors to help ensure good indoor air quality for employees and customers
• processes half of their insurance policies online, reducing need for paper-based products
• gets customers to file electronic signatures, and
• sends all faxes through email.

Moscantolo’s office is the first State Farm office to win a Green Business Certification from the Green Business League.

And, just for good measure, try explaining why it’s OK to be blacklisted from Wal-Mart’s shelves because your products aren’t green enough to keep up with the competition’s eco-enhanced products.

Reason to take this seriously: Wal-Mart is already working on a sustainability index that will rate the greeniness of all products it sells.

Now Wal-Mart Canada’s taking things to the next step. It’s pushing all of its corporate retail competitors and product suppliers to get on the sustainability bandwagon.

That’s the point of the Green Business Summit Wal-Mart hosts Feb. 10 in Vancouver, Canada. The company openly says the point of the conference is to “accelerate change towards sustainability,” which means everything Wal-Mart touches will have to have some eco-improvements.

Attendees include American and Canadian retailers and product suppliers.

Wal-Mart hasn’t gone soft, but the company smells change in consumer buying habits. It wants to be ready to offer green products or at least offer shoppers a way to pick which product is greener than the next.

The company’s also very much into activities its supply chain companies can do to reduce their environmental footprints. The conference will feature some initial case studies of how going green makes business sense. For example, it will detail how:

• Wal-Mart Canada saved $8 million a year by adopting energy-reduction programs
• Maple Leaf Foods converts food wastes into sales of bio-diesel fuels, and
• Coca-Cola reduces waste generation with its new PlantBottle that is 100% recyclable.

The conference will also feature sessions on energy efficiency, waste reduction, green products and employee green-engagement.

The complete list of suppliers is listed on Wal-Mart’s Green Business Summit Web site and there’s a video about the summit featuring TV personality David Suzuki and Wal-Mart Canada CEO David Cheesewright.

Wal-Mart will also work with the Carbon Disclosure Project to verify greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction claims made by its 100,000 suppliers.

Big box retailers Wal-Mart and Best Buy just joined with electronic product makers Dell, HP, Intel and Toshiba to create their own comprehensive green rating system that will highlight the social and environmental aspects of their products so shoppers will know which products are greener than others.

The retailers and manufacturers will work with The Sustainability Consortium to build criteria for measuring the greeniness of electronic products, based on how they’re  built, used and disposed of.

The consortium said in a statement that it will release initial results of its work to assess the sustainability of laptops, desktops and monitors in the fall.

Once green standards are set, the group plans to expand the green ratings to a broader set of electronic goods.

Environmental and green groups already have their own budding green rating certification programs. But the electronics makers and sellers want to develop their own system.

Once they have a program, the group says it will work with established third-party certifications, such as EPEAT® (the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool), EPA’s Energy Star program, and the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition.