General Motors (GM) recently earned its fifth Energy Star Partner of the Year award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for leadership in protecting the environment through energy efficiency. In 2015, the company reduced energy by 5.6 percent per vehicle at its U.S. manufacturing plants.
Since 2010, GM has avoided $237 million in energy costs and reduced 1.8 million metric tons of carbon emissions by engaging 73 of its facilities in an EPA Energy Star energy-reduction challenge. The company has also earned Energy Star certification at 11 facilities.
"GM reinvested $7.4 billion to develop safer and more fuel-efficient vehicles with reduced emissions last year," said Jim DeLuca, GM executive vice president of global manufacturing. "We're continually in pursuit of innovative technologies to reduce the environmental impact of driving, as well as practices that lessen the carbon footprint of manufacturing those vehicles."
GM joined the EPA Energy Star program as a partner more than 20 years ago and uses several of its programs. The company recently became an EPA Green Power Partner, working together to advance clean energy use. The company's Fort Wayne assembly plant is a top 30 generator of onsite green power and is powered 30 percent by methane captured from decomposing trash at a nearby landfill.
GM also uses the EPA's SmartWay to redesign shipping routes. Through mode changes, optimizing drop-off locations and altering delivery frequency, GM and its logistics suppliers avoided 116,000 tons of carbon emissions in 2015. This is equivalent to the carbon emissions from more than 13 million gallons of gasoline burned.
For more information, visit www.gm.com.
