FedEx's new green roof at O'Hare is largest in Chicago

Air travel isn’t exactly green yet, but airports are becoming far more efficient than they used to be.

Officials at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, for example, have been working for years to improve the facility’s use of resources to cut costs and boost sustainability. Among the changes made as part of the O’Hare Modernization Program: the addition of LEED-certified buildings, recycling of construction materials, use of clean-emission vehicles, installation of energy-efficient lighting and even a home for honeybees (the facility boasts the nation’s first airport-based apiary).

Now O’Hare can point to yet another sustainable innovation: the largest green roof on any airport in the US.

FedEx’s newly opened package sorting center, located on the ground of O’Hare, comes in at just under 175,000 square feet … about the size of three football fields. Clearly visible from planes passing overhead, the vegetated space is also the largest green roof on any freestanding building in the Chicago area.

The plant-covered rooftop offers numerous benefits, according to FedEx:

• Reduced air pollution;
• Reduced storm water runoff;
• Reduced airport noise;
• Lower building energy costs (a reduction of 35 percent a year); and
• Extended roof life, from 15-20 years to 40-50 years.

FedEx and officials with the O’Hare Modernization Program are now pursuing LEED Gold certification for the facility. That effort is part of FedEx’s goal, announced earlier this year, of earning LEED certification for all new properties in the US. The express transportation company has also undertaken a number of other green initiatives, including the addition of all-electric trucks into its fleet and the purchase of fuel-efficient Boeing 777s.

The O’Hare Modernization Program aims to transform the airfield from an outdated system of intersecting runways into a modern parallel runway configuration. The effort is expected to reduce overall delays at the airport by 79 percent, and bad weather delays by 95 percent. It’s also projected to create 195,000 new jobs and generate $18 billion in new economic activity each year.