DOE and EPA Honor Energy Star Partners

April 9, 2008

DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) honored 76 businesses, groups, and government entities on April 1 for achieving major energy savings or helping customers save money and energy through their work with the Energy Star program. Eight of the businesses were given special awards to highlight their work: Gorell Enterprises, Inc., Osram Sylvania, and Whirlpool Corp. were awarded Sustained Excellence Awards; Pella Corp. and ProVia Door, Inc. received Partner of the Year awards; Bosch Home Appliances was lauded for its Excellence in Energy Star Promotion; and Best Buy received an award for Excellence in Appliance Retailing. Over the past year, Energy Star, a joint program of DOE and EPA, has helped consumers save more than $16 billion on their electric bills and displace the greenhouse gas equivalent of 27 million vehicles. For more information about the awards, see the DOE press release, the EPA press release, and a 72-page profile of the award winners (PDF 5.3 MB). Download Adobe Reader.

The EPA is also asking organizations to join the new "Energy Star Low Carbon IT Campaign." That's "IT" as in "information technology," and to join the campaign, organizations simply take an online pledge to activate power management features on their monitors and computers to save energy and reduce their carbon footprint. Organizations can increase energy savings further by purchasing Energy Star-qualified computers and monitors. In turn, EPA provides free assistance to help implement power management, helps estimate the organization's energy and carbon savings, and offers official recognition for the organization. The Energy Star program is also teaming up with the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, in which companies commit to both enabling power management and procuring energy-efficient computers. The initiative was launched last year, and thousands of individuals have since pledged their support. See the EPA press release, the campaign Web page on the Energy Star Web site, and the Climate Savers Computing Initiative press release.