General Motors (GM) recently announced that it has received a 2019 Green Power Leadership Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its commitment and contribution to helping advance the development of the nation’s voluntary green power market. GM was presented with the award for direct project engagement at the 2019 Renewable Energy Markets Conference in San Diego, California.
“We are proud for this recognition from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” said Erin Lawrence, energy and carbon optimization engineer at General Motors. “Our efforts and those of other sustainably minded corporations help accelerate the development of renewable resources and advance this market in the U.S. Leveraging renewable power is a demonstration of our commitment to reducing carbon emissions while supporting our RE100 goal to have 100 percent of our electricity use from renewable energy by 2050.”
GM received the award for helping to develop a diverse renewable energy supply portfolio, including exceeding its original renewable energy goal of 125 megawatts, advancing its renewable energy goal as a signatory of RE100 (a global initiative uniting influential businesses committed to 100 percent renewable electricity), executing the first green tariff in Michigan with Consumers Energy, and reaching three new virtual power purchase agreements for wind energy totaling more than 800 million kilowatt-hours coming online in 2018.
The EPA considers green power as electricity generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro. GM was one of only seven organizations nationwide to receive a Leadership Award for direct project engagement. The program recognizes EPA Green Power Partners that distinguish themselves through direct project engagement with on- and offsite projects using a variety of financing structures to access certified renewable green power.
The Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that helps increase green power use among U.S. organizations to advance the American market for green power and development of those sources to reduce air pollution and other environmental impacts associated with electricity use. The Partnership currently has more than 1,500 partners voluntarily using more than 60 billion kilowatt-hours of green power annually.
For more information, visit www.gm.com.