In California, service station offers fill-ups of environmental awareness

What is being billed as the world's first "green" gas station is open for business at a busy intersection on west Los Angeles' border with Beverly Hills. The station itself is what is green. The fuel products it sells are not -- yet.

The station's owner, BP (formerly British Petroleum), converted a gritty cut-rate fueling station location into what it calls "a lab" for environmentally-sensitive building technologies. The new station's roof is comprised of 90 solar panels that help power the station and a rainwater-collection system that contributes to irrigation of the station's drought-tolerant landscaping -- a good choice in arid Southern California. Much of the station is constructed of recycled materials, including its unique, sparkling-concrete driveways, which include bits of crushed glass. Television monitors located on the gas pumps play vignettes about energy conservation, while customers fill up.

Anyone who remembers when gas stations were called "service stations" will appreciate this station's "Green Team" of employees. Team members offer to check -- for free -- the air pressures in customers' tires. The importance of properly inflated tires for getting optimum fuel mileage is but one of many printed-up, energy-saving tips the team members hand out. The tips are printed on recycled paper. The paper is embedded with flower seeds that sprout if the cards are "planted" in the ground.

"Everything here is about reuse," said Ann Hand, the company's senior vice president for global marketing and innovation. The US Green Building Council says the station meets the criteria for its seal of approval. A council spokeswoman confirmed no other gas station has even been considered for certification. The council has certified the construction of more than 700 buildings around the country as sufficiently energy-efficient as to be considered "green".

BP calls the futuristic-looking station "Helios House," in deference to the company's recently changed logo, which includes a stylized sunburst rendering. Helios was the Greek sun god. BP wants to henceforth be considered an "energy company," not an oil company.

So far, Helios House is the only "green" station that BP plans. Helios House is also unique among BP stations because it is the only BP-branded station in the Western states. (BP owns the Western Arco chain.) Although the station currently sells only three grades of unleaded gas, BP is reportedly considering adding biodiesel and/or alternative fuels at a later date.