The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the 2016 winners of the SmartWay Excellence Awards, which honors logistic companies and shippers in the retail and manufacturing sectors. The awards recognize the top-performing SmartWay shipper partners that demonstrate how businesses can mitigate their carbon footprints and contribute to cleaner, healthier air, while saving on fuel costs as they move goods across America.
“EPA is honoring its top environmental performers – those SmartWay Partners that have taken significant steps towards a sustainable freight transportation energy future,” said Christopher Grundler, director of EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality. “SmartWay Excellence Award recipients have become leaders in this crucial sector of our economy by embracing the mutual benefits that efficiency brings for both operational performance and environmental results.”
The 2016 SmartWay Excellence Awardees for retailers, manufactures and logistics companies are:
- Bacardi USA, Inc. (Coral Gables, Fla.)
- Hewlett-Packard Inc.
- Johnson & Johnson (Skillman, N.J.)
- Kimberly-Clark Corporation (Knoxville, Tenn.)
- Lowe's Companies Inc. (Wilkesboro, N.C.)
- The Home Depot U.S.A. Inc (Atlanta, Ga.)
- Transportation Insight LLC (Hickory, N.C.)
- Union Pacific Distribution Services (Omaha, Neb.)
- Whirlpool Corporation (Benton Harbor, Mich.)
Award winners demonstrate a commitment to environmental leadership by achieving lower emissions and by demonstrating effective collaboration, advanced technology and operational practices, robust SmartWay data validation and reporting, communication and public outreach, and implementation of sustainability practices in local communities.
EPA’s SmartWay Transport Partnership supports companies who demonstrate their commitment to corporate sustainability and social responsibility by moving goods in the cleanest, most energy-efficient way possible. Since 2004, SmartWay Partners have avoided emitting more than 72 million metric tons of the carbon pollution that contributes to climate change, while saving more than 170 million barrels of oil and $24.9 billion in fuel costs – equivalent to eliminating annual energy use in more than six million homes. SmartWay also contributes to cleaner air and healthier citizens by significantly reducing emissions of the pollution that contributes to smog, including fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides.
The awards were presented today at the 2016 Annual Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals conference in Orlando, Florida.
Awards for SmartWay carrier partners – such as trucking companies, multimodal transport companies and barge transport companies – will be announced next week at the 2016 American Trucking Association Management Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas, Nevada.
For more information about SmartWay Excellence Awards, please visit: https://www.epa.gov/smartway-excellence-awards
