adidas North America’s headquarters in Portland, Oregon, sits on a campus with a long history. Today, the campus serves thousands of employees and supports the daily operations for the global athletic apparel and footwear corporation. But some of its buildings date back to the Kennedy administration.

“It was originally a hospital built around 1960,” said Evan Talan, manager of energy and environment for the Americas at adidas. “We actually have employees at adidas who were born in that hospital who are working in the same building.”

When adidas purchased the property in 2001, the former hospital was transformed into three standalone buildings connected by open walkways, now known as Green, Intersection and Black.

Still, the campus’ 1960s roots remained behind the walls. Dated mechanical systems, particularly on the west side of the campus, continued to pose ongoing operational challenges and reflected an earlier era.

Tackling infrastructure built for a different use
Originally designed for hospital operations, the buildings were equipped with HVAC systems intended for medical use, not modern office occupancy. Over time, adidas was left managing aging chillers and boilers, oversized systems and equipment nearing the end of their useful life.

Partnering with Energy Trust of Oregon
Before Talan joined adidas, the facilities team had already begun working with Energy Trust of Oregon on an upgrade. With support from Energy Trust, adidas, a customer of Portland General Electric and NW Natural, moved forward with a project to replace portions of its aging boiler based system with heat recovery chillers in the Green Building. Talan later helped guide the project to completion, coordinating teams and ensuring the project met performance and incentive requirements.

“We installed air-to-water heat pumps on the roof that serve as heating equipment to replace a lot of the load that our boilers were doing. This definitely wasn’t a like-for-like replacement and an easy plug-and-play system. This was a significant retrofit,” said Talan.

The upgrade introduced modern equipment better suited to the building’s current use while advancing adidas’ efficiency and decarbonization goals. By reusing waste heat from cooling to provide efficient heating, the system improves performance and reduces fossil fuel use, supporting the company’s broader sustainability efforts.

They leveraged incentives for the chiller upgrade, which is expected to deliver about $126,700 in annual energy cost savings.

Finding additional savings through SEM
adidas’ work with Energy Trust didn’t stop with the chiller upgrade. Talan also enrolled in Energy Trust’s Strategic Energy Management (SEM) offering, which helps organizations uncover operational improvements and identify additional savings opportunities

Through energy coaching, facility walkthroughs and “treasure hunts,” the SEM offering helped Talan and the facilities team better understand how daily operations influence energy use.

“It was great actually being able to run through the program and having an energy coach come on site,” Talan said. “They were definitely instrumental in finding a number of projects that we could do.”

Since enrolling in SEM, adidas has participated in incentive-based energy efficiency initiatives to identify improvements. Through a combination of these incentives and operational changes, the company is realizing approximately $37,700 in annual energy cost savings. Just as importantly, the SEM offering has helped staff identify lower-cost opportunities to improve performance.

Modernizing for the future
Now fully installed, the heat recovery chillers are helping adidas modernize their facilities for the future. While the team continues gathering operational data, the project already represents a major step in upgrading older infrastructure with the needs of a modern workplace.

For Talan, the work with Energy Trust highlights an important takeaway for organizations managing large, complex buildings: efficient systems aren’t just about saving energy, they also help create better spaces for the people who use them every day.

“If you’re not taking advantage of Energy Trust incentives, you’re really missing out,” he said.

Learn more about how your organization can save energy with support from Energy Trust. Visit the cash incentives page. For details about getting started with Energy Trust’s SEM offering visit the Commercial SEM page.