This week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave out its 2007 ENERGY STAR Awards recognizing businesses and organizations, including four in Pennsylvania, for their outstanding contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency.

The Pennsylvania winners include:

Giant Eagle, Pittsburgh: Giant Eagle ranks 32 on Forbes magazine’s largest private corporations list and is now a four-time ENERGY STAR Award winner. It received the ENERGY STAR for 19 stores in 2006, bringing its total to 116 ENERGY STAR labeled stores, or 82 percent of its store portfolio.

Giant Eagle uses a comprehensive Energy Management Program across its operations. This emphasizes energy-saving strategies and technology, benchmarking facility energy use, energy commissioning, power monitoring, and energy procurement.

Giant Eagle participated in the ENERGY STAR “Change a Light, Change the World” campaign, encouraging employees and its 150,000 customers to take the energy-saving pledge.Giant Eagle also introduced an online program called Headline News for regularly reporting energy and environmental information to all levels of the organization. Monthly utility and refrigerant loss data are combined into an index number for each site, normalized for store size, then translated into an Environmental Footprint.

One management report in Headline News lists the stores with the 20 best and worst Environmental Footprints. In addition, service vendors are measured using Key Performance Indicators against corporate standards for energy and refrigerant loss variances. Vendors have access to the system to track their own KPIs.

Gorell Enterprises, Inc., Indiana: Four-time ENERGY STAR Award winner Gorell Enterprises demonstrates that continuous improvement and innovation, with a focus on energy efficiency, can really pay off.

This Sustained Excellence Award winner boasts more than 93 percent of its total sales as ENERGY STAR qualified, a tremendous accomplishment in the window industry. Those sales didn’t happen by accident—Gorell’s use of ENERGY STAR as the pillar of its marketing strategy certainly had a positive effect.

Extensive efforts to label products and educate consumers using print, direct mail, point-of-purchase, and Web media prove that Gorell is committed to providing highly energy-efficient windows and doors to its customers.

In addition, Gorell emphasizes training its wide network of dealers to ensure sales representatives are knowledgeable about ENERGY STAR. Gorell’s commitment to energy efficiency goes beyond sales of its products. In 2006 the company supported the ENERGY STAR “Change a Light, Change the World” campaign by encouraging employees to take the pledge and change at least one incandescent bulb to an ENERGY STAR bulb.

Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, Harrisburg: Created in 1972, the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency is the Commonwealth’s leading provider of funding for affordable rental housing. As a program administrator, the agency sets criteria used to allocate agency funds and tax credits via a competitive application process that uses points to quantify the merits of each proposal.

PHFA made impressive and rapid progress in rewarding development projects that demonstrate a strong energy-efficiency component. In 2005 the agency began offering points to developments featuring ENERGY STAR qualified appliances and mechanical equipment.

In 2006 additional points were awarded to developments verified to meet or exceed ENERGY STAR guidelines. The agency recently announced a new demonstration program that will require all new affordable dwellings to bear the ENERGY STAR label.

Philadlephia Housing Authority, Philadelphia: In 2005 the Philadelphia Housing Authority proactively responded to spiraling energy costs by developing a plan to reduce energy consumption at all residential properties and office facilities.

One significant element of PHA’s plan is an ENERGY STAR Homes demonstration project, which has begun to systematically change the way PHA builds low-income housing. This project includes 64 townhouse units that will qualify for the ENERGY STAR label and save each household an average of more than $500 per year.

The project has also provided PHA staff, architects, engineers, and builders hands-on experience and hard data about energy-efficient construction. In 2006 the Department of Environmental Protection announced funding for a grant that will help PHA build more ENERGY STAR qualified homes.

In 2006 alone, Americans with the help of ENERGY STAR saved $14 billion on their energy bills and avoided greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of 25 million vehicles.

To date, more than 2 billion ENERGY STAR qualified products have been sold, and more than 725,000 new homes and 3,200 office buildings, schools, hospitals, and public buildings have earned the ENERGY STAR label. Qualified products, homes, and buildings provide the quality, features, and personal comfort today's consumers expect.

To learn more, visit the EPA ENERGY STAR Partner webpage.

3/23/2007