The Lafarge North America plant in Calera, Ala. is one of seventeen first-time recipients of EPA’s Energy Star award in recognition of their energy-efficient operations that prevented approximately 3 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. The manufacturers’ efforts not only cut pollution, but also lowered energy consumption and reduced costs.
The U.S. manufacturing sector consumes about one-third of the energy used in the United States and contributes about 28 per cent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Energy is a significant, controllable expense for most manufacturers, and energy efficiency is a direct way to reduce this cost while avoiding emissions of greenhouse gases. EPA’s national energy performance rating system, developed in cooperation with industry, enables companies in the wet corn milling, cement and auto assembly industries to evaluate the energy efficiency of their plants relative to their industries and develop challenging energy improvement goals and plans.
Plant owners are eligible to earn the Energy Star award for a plant if the plant’s energy performance score is in the top 25 percent nationally using EPA’s plant energy performance indicators. The scores are based on actual energy use. EPA is currently working with ten industries to advance innovative corporate energy management tools.
Energy Star is a voluntary, market-based partnership designed to offer business and consumers effective energy efficiency solutions for saving energy, money and the environment. Programs like Energy Star are vital to meeting the Administration’s goal to cut the greenhouse gas intensity by 18 percent by 2012. In 2005, Americans with the help of Energy Star saved about $12 billion on their energy bills and prevented greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those produced in powering 11 million single family homes.
For more information about this plant recognition and the energy efficiency rating system:
