Oct 24 2012
Four industry leaders are being recognized for their efforts to conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions with this year's Cool Planet Awards, sponsored by The Climate Registry's Cool Planet Project and Southern California Edison (SCE).
This year's SCE business customer awardees are: the City of Brea, Eastern Municipal Water District, Marriott International and Northrop Grumman. The Cool Planet Awards are determined by a ranking of energy efficiency efforts within both small and large industry sectors.
"We congratulate all of this year's Cool Planet Award winners on their leadership and dedication to improving energy efficiency at their facilities." said Gene Rodrigues, SCE's director of customer energy efficiency and solar. "These businesses and local governments serve as a model for businesses and local governments to reduce energy use and costs along with their carbon footprint."
The city of Brea is this year's winner in the government and institutional sector. Brea recently retrofitted 14 civic buildings, replaced over 4,000 city streetlights, and installed solar arrays at three facilities, a combined savings of over $400,000 in energy costs.
This year's winner in the water and wastewater sector is the Eastern Municipal Water District. The water district is currently finalizing an energy management reporting system for comparing and reporting energy use per unit of water delivered through over 80 of its water treatment and pumping facilities.
Marriott International is the Cool Planet awardee in the hospitality sector. Marriott has extensive energy efficiency measures at its hotels resulting in over 1.5 million in kilowatt-hours savings. They also have their "Spirit to Preserve" program, which donates a portion of the total cost of guest rooms booked for group meetings to help preserve the Juna Reserve in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil.
In the aerospace and defense sector, Northrop Grumman is this year's Cool Planet Award winner for its achievements with its greeNG program. This comprehensive environmental sustainability program has a committed budget of $47 million dollars to implement energy efficiency projects that will drive a 25 percent reduction in carbon intensity – greenhouse gas emissions normalized to sales – from their 2008 baseline.
All of the Cool Planet Award recipients will be recognized at industry sector presentations held this fall.