FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 08-OPA012
CHICAGO (Jan. 29, 2008) - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 announced today that five Fortune 500 corporations in the region are now buying a total of more than 286.6 million kilowatt-hours of green power annually.
They are Kohl's Department Stores, Menomonee Falls, Wis., 236 million kWh; Baxter International Inc., Deerfield, Ill., 20.5 million kWh; GE Healthcare Headquarters, Waukesha, Wis., 15.8 million kWh; General Motors Service Parts Operations, Pontiac, Mich., 14.1 million kWh; and Monsanto/Agracetus Campus Middleton, Wis., 399,000 kWh. Kohl's was ranked eighth nationally on the amount of green energy purchased.
"These companies are taking the initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the environment," said Regional Administrator Mary A. Gade. "They set a fine example for other corporations in the region. We commend them for voluntarily shifting to renewable energy and hope that others will follow their lead."
Since EPA issued its nationwide challenge in December 2006, 53 Fortune 500 corporations are now collectively purchasing more than 6 billion kWh of green power annually. The purchases surpassed the goals set by EPA's Green Power Partnership by 130 percent and equal the avoided carbon dioxide emissions of more than 570 million gallons of gasoline each year or the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power nearly 670,000 average American homes annually.
EPA's Green Power Partnership works with more than 850 partner organizations to buy green power voluntarily as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use and to support the development of new, renewable generation resources nationwide. Overall, EPA Green Power Partners are buying more than 13 billion kWh of green power annually.
Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and biogas, as well as low-impact hydropower. Green power resources produce electricity with an environmental profile superior to conventional power technologies and produce no net increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
More information on EPA's Fortune 500 Green Power Challenge is at http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/partners/fortune500.htm. More information on EPA's National Top 25 list of green power purchasers is at http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/top25.htm.
Release date: 01/29/2008
Contact Information: William Omohundro, 312-353-8254, omohundro.william@epa.gov
