The Costco Connection: a Lifestyle Magazine for Costco Members.

Costco Connection is a magazine sent free to members of the warehouse club Costco and includes articles which regularly tie into the corporation along with business, political, health, and social articles. (Wikipedia.org)

The monthly Online Edition combines a replica of the print version with bonus content. Cover stories and popular features such as Buying Smart are extended with supplemental material. This electronic version makes the magazine easy to find, print and share articles with family and friends.

Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) is the largest membership warehouse club chain in the world based on sales volume, headquartered in Issaquah, Washington, United States, with its flagship warehouse in nearby Seattle. Costco's Canadian operations are based near Ottawa, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Costco Wholesale Corporation (Costco) operates membership warehouses based on the concept that offering its members very low prices on a limited selection of nationally branded and selected private-label products in a range of merchandise categories will produce high sales volumes and rapid inventory turnover. It buys the majority of its merchandise directly from manufacturers and route it to a cross-docking consolidation point (depot) or directly to its warehouses.

The Company’s depots receive container-based shipments from manufacturers and reallocate these goods for shipment to its individual warehouses, generally in less than twenty-four hours. The Company’s warehouse format averages approximately 140,000 square feet; newer units tend to be larger. Its warehouses operate on a seven-day, 69-hour week. It carries an average of approximately 4,000 active stockkeeping units (SKUs) per warehouse in its core warehouse business. (Google Finance)

Costco.com: Offering thousands of items you won’t find in your local Costco.

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Cover Story: Going Green

It's not easy being green. Even so, small businesses fi nd that by going green, not only can they grow but they may be sustainable in more ways than one. BY T. FOSTER JONES

Costco members add environmental sustainability to their businesses’ bottom line

GREEN. It has become, in the words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “the native hue of resolution.” What was fringe has gone mainstream.

Green subjects grace the cover of every major magazine. Stories about environmental issues are daily news fare. We see more “green” products on the shelves. Gasolineelectric hybrid cars are gaining in popularity.

Businesses are also making efforts to reduce their impact on the environment by reducing product packaging, increasing the recycled content of products, pushing suppliers to stop using certain chemicals in products, using more renewable energy and reducing the amount of waste generated.

Costco members across the country have been starting or converting to greener methods of operating their businesses. The challenges, they have found, begin with defining what green means and deciding what their motivation for going green is, and go on to affect every aspect of their business. ...

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from the publisher’s desk
Ginnie Roeglin

EVERYONE IS TALKING “GREEN” these days. At Costco, we have long been cutting our energy costs to keep our prices as low as possible. However we have significantly expanded our focus on reducing our carbon footprint. Our Corporate Sustainability and Energy Department has been busy researching how to conduct every aspect of our business in an environmentally and socially responsible and sustainable manner.

We are reducing energy consumption with solar panels on the rooftops of many warehouses and improved lighting, water and cooling systems in our buildings. We have made many changes to our products and are eliminating the use of nonrecyclable and nonbiodegradable packaging materials. New package sizes and shapes enable us to reduce the number or amount of pallets, trucks and fuel it takes to deliver the products to our warehouses. The net result is not just being greener, but improved quality at a lower price for our members.

July is furniture month in our warehouses, with an expanded selection of a variety of pieces. In this issue, you will find many ads for our fine furniture, as well as a special section, beginning on page 39, filled with our buyers’ tips on selecting the right furniture for your home. You can also find a wide selection of furniture on costco.com all year round, for delivery to your home.

And our summer Passport program continues to offer great savings this month on everything from leather furniture, vanities, flooring, ladders, LCD and DLP HDTVs, telephones, computers, HP all-in-one printers, office chairs, digital photo frames, and Whirlpool Duet washers and dryers to our new cupcakes (perfect for Fourth of July barbecues).

Also, watch your mailbox later this month for additional special offers coming soon. Happy Fourth of July from all of us at Costco!

from the editor’s desk
David W. Fuller

SUSTAINABILITY. RECYCLED CONTENT. Post-consumer waste. To many, these may seem like buzzwords. For anyone who publishes a magazine, however, these words represent a daily concern. With circulation now nudging past 7 million copies per month, we are ever aware of the natural resources that go into the printing and distribution of The Connection. We constantly work with our paper suppliers, printers, ink vendors and freight companies to assure that we are staying at the forefront of environmental responsibility, even as we maintain strict budget discipline.

Most of the paper used to print The Connection includes 10 percent post-consumer waste. We also are working to see that the trees used to make our paper come from forests that have been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council or the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, independent environmental organizations that verify trees are being harvested in a sustainable and responsible manner.

We print our magazines in plants in California and Mississippi that carefully monitor the amount of wasted paper, use state-of-the-art catalytic converters to vent their pressrooms and, in one case, even co-generate their own power, using waste paper as a fuel source.

Although we currently use oil-based inks, we regularly review the viability of using soy-based inks. Unfortunately, the increase in worldwide agricultural prices has put soy inks out of reach for the time being.

By printing in multiple locations, we are able to reduce the number of miles our trucks drive between the printing plants and the post offices where the magazines are mailed.

Our goal is to perform better in all of these aspects of manufacturing and distributing a quality publication that effectively serves Costco and its members without doing a disservice to the environment.

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