Lost...in...Spaaaaace

I was clicking through Planetizen's newsletter from last week and ran across an article I found worth sharing. The article, "Getting Stuffed" was featured in Macleans Magazine.


The focus of the article is on American's obsession with stuff...and our need to store it, particularly as it relates to the self-storage units. The author also relates the self-storage boom to the increase in housing foreclosures.


The article made me think about office practices (as well as personal junk storage, of course). In the effort to reduce real estate costs and make offices closer to paperless, many companies have turned to off-site archiving solutions. These are great solutions as some files absolutely need to be kept for legal or other reasons; however, there is not a need for regular access of these documents. Off-site storage allows these files to be stored in preferable environmental conditions, as well as in lower-cost real estate.


My question is, how much of the stuff we store in archives do we actually need to keep? The answer is, probably not as much as we thought when we were cleaning out our desks. Perhaps companies need to think about doing an annual "archive purge" in addition to the regular office clean up. This could benefit not just the company (lower storage costs), but also the environment (more paper into the recycling stream, fewer needs for new storage facilites, to name a few).


Companies also need to be more stringent in what employees are allowed to send to storage. At my office, as long as I fill out the forms, I can put pretty much whatever I want in my boxes. Yes, we do have archiving protocols, but not everyone knows them and those who do don't necessarily follow them. Since we don't archive THAT much stuff, there's also not significant cross-checking of what we're archiving. I'd guess lots of companies operate similarly.


How much have you thought about your archived files? What needs to be there? What should have been recycled? What did you need to keep for only a few years?

State of Utah Moving to 4-Day Work Week

I had the great pleasure of meeting Governor Jon Hunstman (R) from Utah today. An inspiring man on many fronts (he speaks fluent Mandarin and adopted two abandoned babies from China and India for a start), but I was particulaly inspired by his credible commitment to the environment. One of his most recent initiatives is to transition all state employees to a 4-day work week (4 ten-hour days with Fridays off). This will start full time in July and his team will be measuring the economic and environmental results at the 1-year mark. There are many logistics to work out (daycare for employees, etc.), but the benefits he sees are numerous:

1. With this one chnage, state government buildings in Utah will reduce energy consumption by 20%.
2. The state will be more likely to recruit smart, young people looking for work-life balance jobs.
3. They are more likely to retain staff - it's a perceived "bonus" by most to have three day weekends all year.
4. They will be able to provide better service to their constituants (they are open earlier and later Mon-Thurs, so better able to support working moms and dads).

If roughly 17,000 employees across an entire state can take on alternative work hours, how hard can it really be?

For more info: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25518225/

The 100 Thing Challenge

I’m travelling on business for a couple of weeks and was trying to be efficient in packing up my suitcase. While on the plane, I read an article in Time Magazine, “How to Live With Just 100 Things.” I guarantee I packed more than 100 things for my trip - even just socks and underwear for two weeks bring me close to 30!

This article discusses America’s obsession with consumerism. How many things do we actually need? Far fewer than we have, for certain. Anyone who has moved to a larger office (or home) knows that it fills up immediately with “stuff.” Some of it is necessary or desirable, but a lot of it is just because we have room to store it. When you have a tiny workstation (or apartment), it does make you think twice about what you actually need.

My workstation in the office is 36 SF – pretty tiny by any standards, but it suits me well. I have a pedestal with two drawers, two filing cabinet drawers, and two shelves. It is more than enough, and forces me to regularly recycle or archive my old files.

In the article, Dave Bruno has challenged himself to have only 100 things (personal items) to live successfully. When applying this to business, I wonder if I could do it….despite its small size, my desk still has a good number of things (grouped below by category rather than thing) – I don’t think I make it even close to only 100 things!
1. laptop computer, docking station, monitor, power cord, mouse
2. external hard drive, jump drive
3. files
4. pens, pencils, markers, highlighters
5. notepads, post-its
6. binder clips, paper clips, rubber bands
7. reusable water cup
8. desk phone & headset
9. cell phone & charger
10. books
11. drawer full of personal items (lotion, shout wipes, splenda packets, contact solution, etc.)
12. snacks (mostly diet cokes & granola bars)
13. tissues
14. vendor freebies
15. recycle pile, trash can
16. work bag, lunch bag, gym bag

How does your desk add up?

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Workplace

When it comes to incorporating social responsibility or sustainability in the workplace, it’s not just about creating a green building or complying with green building code; it’s about creating healthy and productive workplaces for people while increasing social and shareholder value for the organization.

The 100 Best Corporate Citizens list (from Corporate Responsibility Officer Magazine) ranks firms based on how well they perform in eight categories: shareholders, community, governance, diversity, employees, environment, human rights, and product. Their scores draw on both financial information and measures of corporate social performance. Here's my take on how the workplace can support these social performance categories:

Shareholders
Use minimal infrastructure resources to maximize shareholder value (minimize total amount of real estate needed which in turn impacts energy use, water use, cleaning, etc.)

Community
Accommodate safe business practices that don’t negatively impact their surroundings.

Create a desirable environment which supports local recruiting.

Governance
Adopt operational policies and protocols in support of a healthy and productive work environment.

Diversity
Accommodate a variety of work styles and work functions through flexible work settings, furniture, technology and training.

Employees
Design an environment is healthy and productive (access to natural light, visual stimulation, access to nature, etc.)

Support work-life balance through alternative work policies (work at home, desk sharing, etc.)

Environment
Implement transportation demand management strategies in place to minimize carbon footprint (public transportation incentives or rebates, bicycle or other personal transportation accommodations).

Design a workplace that is highly flexible and adaptable, accommodating organizational change and minimizing construction impact.

Human Rights
Create work policies and practices that ensure a safe and healthy environment

Products
Building materials, furniture and all products used in the workplace are safe, non-toxic and reusable if not easily recyclable.

The Green Workplace of the Future

What does the workplace of the future look like? Better question... what is the nature of work in the future? Right now, most people associate work with an "office" or a single physical space where they do work. But with technology, we no longer need to be tethered to one place. In fact, for many knowledge workers, they are almost never in the office anyway (they just don't like to admit it). So, if we're completely untethered, how would we like to work? I'm willing to bet it wouldn't be in a place like this:

Microsoft says it should look like this. But I think that's a software company's dream. I mean, it looks like an environment made for computers, not people. Very sterile.
My idea of the perfect workplace? How about something like this...
It's one of the quietest places I've ever been and a short commute from my house… the Library of Congress Reading Room. Now that's a workplace that is inspiring and very condusive to working on heads-down tasks. Or how about any other library for that matter.

How about when I need to collaborate? How about a place like this?
You’re probably thinking… So you’re talking metaphorically, right? Actually, I’m not. Using libraries and cafes or other public or private spaces available to us could really be an individual or team choice. Do we even need an office? Or if we have one, perhaps it's much smaller, as we only need it to collaborate, use special equipment or regularly connect with our colleagues from time to time. Given the wide variety of choices we have to work in truly people-centric, productive places, why would we ever choose to sit in a Dilbert cube again?

The Expense Report

Many of us work in fields where once in a while we have to spend our own money for a business expense. Generally, this is not a big deal, but it does require some effort to submit an expense report – both personal effort and sustainable impact. Here are a couple of thoughts about how to green the process:

1. Direct deposit. Rather than sending a check, companies should be able to directly deposit reimbursements into your account.
2. Receipt requirement. I understand why receipts are required (fraud, etc); however, it is “greener” to not get a receipt at all (think ATM, gas pump, etc). Many transactions are made by credit card or bank card and are tracked by the issuing financial institution. I know in my personal life I try to avoid getting receipts because it means I’ll have to shred them later (annoyance factor trumps green factor, but end result is the same). If companies could accept credit card statements in lieu of receipts, this could help reduce the amount of wasted paper (and for those of us that occasionally lose receipts when travelling, could help cut employees losses).
3. Receipt submission. Employees should be encouraged to tape their receipts to the backs of used paper, rather than printing out a special “receipt page.”
4. Paperless submission. Some companies already do this, some do not, and some (like mine) are in the process of converting. We currently have to type up our reports, print them out, tape our receipts to a blank sheet of paper (recycled back sides are ok) and ship them overnight to accounting. They are then scanned and reviewed virtually. More sustainable measures would be:

• Bundling expense reports weekly/bi-weekly – results in fewer packages shipped.
• Scanning and sending directly to accounting from our multi-function printers – eliminates need for overnight shipping.
• Online submission – no printing required.

Any other ideas on how to green your expense report submission process?

Image Source: http://www.gembapantarei.com

NRDC Greening Advisor

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has created a Greening Advisor site for small and medium sized companies interested in greening their organization.

"The Greening Advisor is a free and easily accessible resource that points the way towards cost savings and environmental responsibility,” said Frances Beinecke, president of NRDC. “With the Greening Advisor as a guide, greening a business or organization no longer needs to be a daunting task, but an achievable goal that can be integrated into every company’s mission."

The site takes the next step for companies interested in developing their own committments and strategies for the environment by creating "boiler plate" policy documents as well as tactical strategies for going green. For example, environmental language in contracts, environmental purchasing policy and the like. I may have to steal a few of these!

Alternative Work is Really, Really Green

I work with companies that embrace alternative work. Alternative, meaning work gets done, but it could happen at any time (after the kids are in bed) or any place (at home, in a cafe, at the office, etc.) This ability to work anywhere and any time is enabled by technology and helps employees juggle personal and professional life. Though workers may give up having an assigned seat, the ability to work in a more flexible way is generally perceived as a net benefit. The benefit for companies adopting alternative work is that they reduce real estate. And they save a lot of money.

Sprint shed 2.4 million square feet of space from 2005 to 2007 and 900,000 square feet will be released in 2008 through their adoption of “work anywhere” environments. This will create an annual savings of $80 million for the company starting in 2009.

American Express has projected annual cost avoids of $17 to $20 million through their initiatives to build high-performance work spaces based on actual occupancy, not headcount.

Here's the green headline here... companies that adopt alternative work are taking on one of the most environmentally beneficial strategies available to them - they are reducing their carbon footprint to begin with.

Alternative work reduces carbon footprint by reducing the amount of resources needed to build larger buildings and to incrementally operate them (energy, water, etc.) AND... they reduce the amount of energy needed to commute to work (note earlier TGW post that employees use twice as much energy commuting than they do occupying their office).

Think about it for your company. In the wise words of Mies van der Rohe, "less is more."

Co-Working: Don't Work at Home Alone!

The Office Paper Trail

At FOX Architects, we are always looking for ways to reduce our large paper usage. We calculated our usage and then conducted research to discover how to decrease the amount of paper we wasted. Inspired by Greenette and Millennial 4 Earth’s paper reduction posts, I present you 3 ideas on how to reduce paper usage in your office:

• Set up all computers to default print double-sided. In only one month we were able to reduce our paper usage almost 25%....also saving us 25% in paper costs. Individuals can always go into their printer settings and set their documents to single sided printing if it must be single sided.


• In Word, set your margins to ¼” instead of the default 1” on each side, allowing more text to fit on each page, which saves you pages in the end (tip from Ideal Bite).


• Save any paper that is printed on only one side and use it for printing drafts, as scrap paper, or cut up the paper into quarters and bind into little notebooks.

Any other ideas of how to save paper in your office?

The Potential Limitations of a Green Office

I came across an article today in The Guardian newspaper (UK) about the limitations of the green office... it made some interesting points:

Professor Sharon Parker, director of the Institute of Work Psychology at the University of Sheffield says there is a danger of overlooking the welfare of workers in the drive to tick the environment boxes. "If organisations are very strongly focused on protecting the environment and at the same time neglecting human wellbeing, then that may create inconsistencies," she says. "That makes workers a little bit cynical about what the organisation is trying to do. People wonder whether going green is genuine or for the bank balance [because of it's proven cost-savings]."

Parker says factors like leadership quality, the level of discretion you have in your job and the number of opportunities you have to develop skills have as much impact as green initiatives in making an office a good environment to work in. "You need to look at the bigger picture," she says. "If you want an office to be sustainable for people and the environment then you have to look at relationships and information as well as design."

For a direct link to the article click here.

How to Increase Participation in Go Barefoot Day

As you read in Greenette’s post a couple of days ago, HOK is making a push to reduce its carbon footprint (and that of its employees) by hosting Go Barefoot Day on Earth Day this year.

The question is how many employees will buy in? In a firm of over 2,500 folks, spreading the word is tough. Here are some of the ways the firm’s sustainable champions are hoping to encourage participation:

• Firm-wide survey
• Firm-wide email
• Go Barefoot blog
• Word of mouth
• Posters and panel displays
• Stickers for those who participate
• Discussion at firm- and office-wide events
• Local office events such as ice cream party
• Bribery with “green happy hour” for office with greatest participation

What are your ideas for behavioral/change management/employee enrollment?

For more articles about Barefoot day, check out the following links:

• Treehugger
• Environmental Graffiti
• Today’s Facility Manager
• Contract Magazine

Image source: http://www.letscurbpesticides.ca

Too Busy for Blogs?

As you can see just from our blogroll, there are tons of great green blogs out there, ranging from green design to green living to just green-green. Sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily, there are resources out there to help you cut through the information and see what others find the most interesting. I’m always pleased when I see a Green Workplace post on any of these!

• Architectural Record Selects: Green Blogs
• Architectural Record Selects: Practice Blogs
• GreenSource Selects: Blogs
• Sustain Newsladder
• Digg/Environment
• Hugg 2.0
• Best Green Blogs – list of blogs with description...you can also sign up for an RSS feed here!

Check out more bookmarking resources below.

Your Green Grade

Last week some colleagues and I met with an well known organization to work through ways to green their real estate portfolio. We all came armed with lots of ideas, and at the end of the day walked away with a list of solid projects that they could start on tomorrow. Very productive. Afterwards, the sustainable champion asked me a question that I get every once in a while... he asked, "What grade would you give my company on their sustainable practices?"

Thinking of an answer for him made me think carefully. I mean, a grade is effectively a comparison score. Should I compare this organization against all other firms globally? Or just companies in the same industry? Or should it really a comparison against other companies in the same region? This organization participates in the Carbon Disclosure Project (at least their parent company does) and so I could look there for answers, but I chose a different tack.

I decided my "grade" for this real estate group should be based on the following:

• Size and volume of projects they were actually doing versus talking about,
• If they had a vision statement or mission to share with the organization,
• Whether they had a set of green guidelines that outlined their specific priorities and goals for the organization,
• How much the company at large really knew real estate's green initiatives (sign of a communication or change management strategy),
• Whether they were coordinated with other groups in the organization like HR, IT, Communications, Social Responsibility or Sustainability executives, on the green front and
• If they were fully leveraging their "sphere of influence" with brokers, developers, contractors, architects, food service providers, carpet manufacturers, furniture dealerships, etc. by greening their vendor contracts, RFPs and leases.

This particular company fell short on many of these items, but I have to commend them on their willingness to roll up their sleeves and get started. Many companies are still overwhelmed by the whole idea of "getting green" and have not even made the first step by asking, "What should we be doing?" And most companies haven't even budgeted for the time it takes to think through the full range of issues that come up. My question to these gun-shy companies is... How long can you afford to resist getting green? Let me warn you, I'm a harsh grader. It's time to up your score.

LEED is Just Not Enough

The U.S. Green Building Council and their LEED certification process is truly making a difference in the building industry. See Jetson Green's ovation for their recent success: Green Buildings Financially Crush and Outperform Non-Green Buildings!!

That's all well and good, but look at some of the real hurdles we're setting for ourselves. Take California for example. Executive Order S-3-05 targets a reduction in greenhouse gases to:

• 2000 levels by 2010
• 1990 levels by 2020
• 80% below 1990 levels by 2050

This means that by 2050 we must reduce our emissions to roughly 17% of what they are today. Yikes. So how do we attack this? Well, transportation is roughtly 41% of emissions, electricity production impacts 22% (with 75% of that used for buildings) and residential and commercial bulidings emit roughly 9%. The built environment affects 2/3 of CA's GHG emissions.

So even if every single building in the state achieves LEED certification , we won't even come close to meeting this target. The solution? To realistically meet this target, we need to stop building buildings. And reduce single occupancy driving as much as humanly possible. We need to find new ways to create energy and transport goods / people through our cities. We have to overhaul the system. LEED certification just isn't enough by itself.

Admittedly CA, as usual, has set some of the more aggressive of U.S. policies, but all the government targets I'm seeing (and listed on the USGBC website) require significantly more attention than we're giving them today. Find the public policies that affect your neck of the woods. Turning off lights and driving hybrids is not going to do it. We need to engage in some extremely creative thinking about how we work, recreate and live.

Companies that are starting to think this way today are already avoiding costs and receiving kudos by environmentalists at the same time. It takes time to work through these issues, but isn't it worth it?

Cardboard Furniture: Not Just for your Cat

There are tons of common uses for cardboard: kitty scratching post, college student desks and bookshelves, children's forts, sliding practice for aspiring baseball and softball stars... While you may be familiar with some of these, did you know that furniture designers are branching out into greater use of cardboard?

Here's a brief (and incomplete) history:

• 1969 and 1973: Frank Gehry's "Easy Edges" series of designs layered corrugated cardboard to create chairs and tables capped by a wooden layer for extra strength.
• 1990: Patent issued.
• 2000: Cardboard furniture used at Sydney Summer Olympics.

Where can you get cardboard furniture? Well, lots of places:

• Bloxes
• Cardboard Designs
• ReturDesign
• Chaos Shelves
• Foldschool
• Treehugger's picks

Check out my inspiration: GreenSage's e-zine

The Virtual Workplace

The rise of the virtual workplace will reshape the way businesses and workers communicate and collaborate worldwide and could quite possibly be the way forward to cut down on the carbon emissions we produce through intensive travelling.

IBM have today predicted five future trends that will increase demand for virtual communication in the workplace:

1. The Virtual Workplace will become the rule. No need to leave the office. Just bring it along. Desk phones and desktop computers will gradually disappear, replaced by mobile devices, including laptops, that take on traditional office capabilities. Social networking tools and virtual world meeting experiences will simulate the feeling on being there in-person. Work models will be changed by expanded globalization and green business initiatives that reduce travel and encourage work at home.
2. Instant Messaging and other real-time collaboration tools will become the norm, bypassing e-mail. Just as e-mail became a business necessity, a new generation of workers has a new expectation for instant messaging (IM) as the preferred method of business interaction. This will fuel more rapid adoption of unified communications as traditional IM becomes the core extension point for multi-modal communications.
3. Beyond Phone Calls to Collaborative Business Processes. Companies will go beyond the initial capabilities of IM, like click-to-call and online presence, to deep integration with business processes and line-of-business applications, where they can realize the greatest benefit.
4. Interoperability and Open Standards will tear down proprietary walls across business and public domains. Corporate demand for interoperability and maturing of industry standards will force unified communications providers to embrace interoperability. Converged, aggregated, and rich presence will allow businesses and individuals to better find and reach the appropriate resources, removing inefficiencies from business processes and daily lives.
5. New meeting models will emerge. Hang up on routine, calendared conference calls. The definition of "meetings" will radically transform and become increasingly adhoc and instantaneous based on context and need. 3-D virtual world and gaming technologies will significantly influence online corporate meeting experiences to deliver more life-like experiences demanded by the next generation workers who will operate more efficiently in this familiar environment.

Dirty Bus U

The Washington (DC) Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, a.k.a. Metro, is donating the last four of its "dirty air" buses to the nonprofit Biodiesel University. These buses generate some of Metro's dirtiest emissions.

The buses will be turned into mobile teaching labs that will run on biodiesel fuel. Biodiesel U, affiliated with the University of Maryland, will take the teaching labs to schools, colleges and events across the region.

Now I think this is a great idea for a couple of reasons - we have a lot of dirty vehicles (not just in DC, all over the world) and we can just chuck them into landfills when we're ready to upgrade to a cleaner bus (or car). It makes sense to convert them and keep on using them. This got me thinking that Metro probably spent a lot of money on newer, cleaner emitting buses and wouldn't it makes sense to convert the buses to biodiesel...and keep on running them for Metro? I don't know a lot about conversion services out there, but I would love to hear about them. I think this could apply well to fleet vehicles too.

And the other reason I like this idea: it really got me thinking. There a lot of website that tell you how to shrink your carbon footprint as an individual, and they often advise activities like buying Energy Star appliances or hybrid cars. Well, we can't all go out and buy new cars or appliances as this would a) create a lot of waste and b) create a huge demand on resources. BUT! What if we could come up with the technology to convert these to more efficient models without having to trade them in altogether? Is anyone working on this???

It is like LEED-EB for cars and appliances! Use what you have and make it more efficient.

British employees dissatisfied with employer's environmental policies

Just one-fifth of British employees surveyed by the Carbon Trust said they thought their organisation was doing enough to cut its emissions. Shockingly, two-thirds said their employer had made no attempt to encourage them to consider ways of reducing their emissions by taking alternative transport to work.

Over two-thirds (70 per cent) of employees polled said they want to cut their carbon emissions but need more guidance and empowerment from their bosses.

We know that changes in workplace practices hold huge potential to help the environment. The following statistics demonstrate the impact of inefficiencies in the office:

1. Office lights left on overnight use enough energy in a year to heat a home for almost five months
2. A single computer left on overnight for a year creates enough carbon dioxide to fill a double-decker bus;
3. A 2°c increase in office temperature creates enough CO2 in a year to fill a hot air balloon;
4. A photocopier left on standby overnight wastes enough energy to make 30 cups of tea.

Hugh Jones, solutions director at the Carbon Trust says:

"the measures that will have the biggest impact and achieve the greatest energy savings require buy-in across a workforce...In the current economic climate it's never been more important for all businesses, of all sizes, to act on climate change. With savings of up to 20 per cent to be made on energy bills through no cost or cost effective measures it makes perfect business sense to empower employees to do their bit both at work and at home."

We can very simply make the changes to produce easy 'quick wins' that will reduce our workplace carbon emissions, cost us nothing to implement, and in fact save us money on bills! Naming just a few, easy steps we could make are:

• Thinking twice before printing documents;
• Printing documents double-sided;
• Turning off PCs at night and turning off monitors when we're away from our desks;
• Turning off lights at the end of the day or when know one is present in a room;
• Enthusiastic participation in recycling schemes;
• Consider the carbon footprints of our commute to work;
• Carefully consider the provenance of the products we order for the office.

The Carbon Trust's research has presented me with two overriding thoughts:

1. As professional consultants (or in-house facilities teams) it is imperative that we include protocols and policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions when developing workplace protocols for clients (such as when developing flexible working guidelines);
2. HOK offices worldwide must lead by example by instituting carbon emission-reducing protocols within our own workspaces. There should be a policy document for each office, which include policies not only on the office environment but also recommendations / incentives for 'greener' travel to work and travel to clients. These should be part of every new employee's induction.

Please comment on this post to share your views.

No, it's not a concert, but Wal-Mart is finding Green Groupies

Wal-Mart is an interesting study in making business green. Since 2005, and, really, prior to that, Wal-Mart has stepped up its efforts to have a more positive impact on the world – environmentally, socially, through product lines and capital (go to Fortune.com for more information on how Wal-Mart got started on its green initiatives) .

While Wal-Mart’s leadership has jumped on board and is helping to lead the effort, the megachain has recognized that its efforts will be in vain if it does not move from the ground up and empower its employees to think about sustainability on an individual basis.

Thus, in 2007, Wal-Mart introduced a new initiative it calls the Personal Sustainability Practices (PSPs). The purpose of the voluntary program is to assist its associates with incorporating sustainable principles into their daily lives to improve their overall wellness, as well as the health of the environment. Associates develop their own lifestyle changes – everything ranging from eating organic food to exercising to organizing recycling efforts – that specifically works in their routine and will keep them motivated.

The only guides for developing a PSP are that it must: sustain the planet, make one happy, affect the community, become regular and continuous in daily life, and include visible action that can be shared with and seen by others.

Within months after roll-out, 50% of Wal-Mart associates has signed up for the project, much more than expected, with the hopes that all employees would become involved within two years. According to Act Now, the organization who helped construct the campaign, Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club employees have:

- Lost more than 60 tons of weight;
- Walked/biked/swam more than 380,000 miles
- Created over 16,000 “Idea Groups” to support one another around Personal Sustainability
- Quit or reduced smoking, with more than 10,000 Associates to date making a healthier change!
- Recycled more than 5 million pounds of aluminum, plastic, and paper

Some employees want to carve out more time from their busy schedules for family and friends, while others are advocating for healthier meal options in their stores (i.e. - Subway v. McDonald's).

Said one associate to the NY Times, “This is not about becoming a tree-hugger... It’s about making one little change."

Perhaps Wal-Mart's PSP is one drop in a large bucket of corporations encouraging lifestyle changes, but Wal-Mart has the capability to be one heckuva large drop.