GM earned two awards that recognized its leadership in protecting the environment through superior energy efficiency: the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2015 Energy Star Partner of the Year Award for Sustained Excellence and the Energy Star Climate Communications award.
This is the fourth year GM has earned the Sustained Excellence award, the highest recognition a company can receive from the EPA. The award recognizes its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and for employing “energy-efficient approaches”.
Meanwhile, the latter award recognizes the company’s commitment to educating employees and others within the company about the importance energy efficiency and the impacts of climate change.
GM joined Energy Star in 1995 and since then it has reduced energy intensity of its U.S. operations– the amount of energy used per vehicle produced–by a whopping 40 percent.
According to the EPA, GM earned the ‘Sustained Excellence’ award based on the following achievements in 2014:
- Reduced energy intensity by 6 percent globally
- Expanded Energy OnStar to GM powertrain facilities. Energy OnStar is the company’s system tracking 2.5 million energy data points per minute and providing real-time monitoring of energy per unit produced and facility heating and cooling systems
- Invested $34 million in more than 30 facilities for energy efficiency, water and carbon reduction projects, each with a return on investment of less than two years
- Collaborated with utility companies on energy projects and funding
- Eliminated the use of coal at Wentzville, Mo., and Detroit-Hamtramck, Mich., assembly plants.
- Remained the global leader of the Energy Star Challenge for Industry with 70 GM facility achievers, resulting in $196 million in energy costs avoided and 1.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions reduced, equivalent to adding 378,947 passenger vehicles without a greenhouse gas impact.
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