Hanesbrands Inc began shipping products from its new 1.3-million-square-foot West Coast distribution center in Perris, Calif., the largest facility in the company’s worldwide supply chain and one of the biggest warehouses in the world built to advanced environmental standards.

The distribution center, which will more than quadruple the company’s West Coast distribution capacity in 2009, is strategically located near the Long Beach, Calif., port and receives goods from the company’s production centers in Asia and Central America for distribution to retailers.

“A large West Coast distribution center increases our company’s flexibility to effectively and efficiently distribute our core products produced across our supply chain,” said Lee Woodard, Hanesbrands vice president of global logistics. “The majority of our distribution centers are located in the eastern half of the country. The West Coast distribution center will help us service customers by reducing lead times and increasing speed to market.”

The company began shipping from 700,000 square feet of the distribution center this week and will start up operations in the remaining 600,000 square feet in April. Hanesbrands will lease the distribution center and retain NFI, a third-party logistics provider based in Cherry Hill, N.J., to manage the facility. The Perris center will replace a 360,000-square-foot distribution center that supports the company in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

Hanesbrands had the Perris distribution center built to stringent standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council, focusing on innovative ways to operate sustainably through conservation of water, energy and material usage. The company will seek certification for the building from the Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which would make it the largest LEED-certified warehouse in Southern California and one of the biggest in the world.

Sustainable features of the Perris distribution center include:

• Energy usage by the operation has been reduced by 18 percent as a result of extensive use of natural skylighting, motion-detection lighting, insulation of the roof and a design that does not require heating or air conditioning for a comfortable working environment. The company is also researching the feasibility of outfitting its more than 1 million-square-foot roof with solar panels or membranes, which would result in the building being a net energy generator rather than user of electricity.

• Water usage was reduced by 40 percent compared with typical warehouses of its size through low-water bathroom fixtures and low-water landscaping. The center is also using natural green catchment basins to maximize storm-water retention and minimize water discharge into the sewer system.

• The project significantly reduced material that was sent to a landfill, preliminarily estimated at 50 percent, and material needed to be brought onto the site through recycling and material reuse, innovative site grading techniques and use of locally produced concrete and steel.