EPA announces winners of 2016 Climate Leadership Awards

Seventeen organizations from throughout the nation are being recognized with Climate Leadership Awards for their leadership and innovation in helping fight climate change.

Winners are honored for managing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in internal operations and throughout the supply chain, as well as integrating climate resilience into their operating strategies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.

This is the fifth year of the annual Climate Leadership Awards, a partnership between the EPA’s Center for Corporate Climate Leadership, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, and The Climate Registry.

“This year’s Climate Leadership Award winners are setting a high bar for organizations across the country,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “They are proving that climate action isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s also the profitable thing to do.”

From an innovative partnership that dramatically increased mass adoption of home energy and water efficiency projects in communities across California to some of the country’s largest corporations exceeding their emission reduction goals, the EPA’s Climate Leadership Award winners show that actions to combat climate change make smart business decisions.

The 2016 Climate Leadership Award recipients are:

• Organizational Leadership Award: California Department of Water Resources, Sacramento, for protecting California’s water supply; Ingersoll Rand, Davidson, N.C., for phasing out HCFCs and other refrigerants; Mars Inc., McLean, Va., for working to eliminate GHG emissions 100 percent by 2040; Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., for establishing an internal carbon fee that funds energy upgrades, and more.

• Supply Chain Leadership Award: Cisco Systems, San Jose, Calif., for engaging all suppliers to have strong sustainability programs.

• Individual Leadership Award: Thomas G. Day, U.S. Postal Service, Wash., D.C., for leading the U.S. Postal Service in reducing GHG emissions 20 percent by 2020.

• Innovative Partnerships Certificate: Government Authorities for the Home Energy Renovation Opportunity Program, San Diego, for helping to increase the mass adoption of home energy and water efficiency across California; King County-Cities Climate Collaboration, Seattle, for adopting a countywide GHG emissions reduction goal of 25 percent by 2020; Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership, Minneapolis, Minn., for working to reduce the city’s emissions 30 percent by 2025.

• Excellence in Greenhouse Gas Management Goal Achievement: Best Buy, Richfield, Minn., for reducing GHG emissions 26 percent from 2009 to 2014; Kimberly-Clark Corp., Irving, Texas, for reducing global GHG emissions 6.9 percent from 2010 to 2014; Pitney Bowes, Stamford, Conn., for reducing global GHG emissions 15 percent from 2012 to 2014; United Technologies Corp., Hartford, Conn., for reducing global GHG emissions 27 percent from 2006 to 2014; Xcel Energy, Minneapolis, Minn. for reducing GHG emissions 20 percent from 2005 to 2014.

• Excellence in Greenhouse Gas Management Goal Setting: Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, DFW Airport, Texas, for setting a target of an annual 2 percent reduction in its scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions from 2010 to 2020; IBM, Armonk, N.Y., for setting a 35 percent GHG emissions third-generation reduction goal for global operations between 2005 and 2020; MetLife, New York, for working to achieve carbon neutrality from 2016 through at least 2018.

The awards were presented Wednesday at the 2016 Climate Leadership Conference in Seattle. 

For more information about the 2016 Climate Leadership Award winners, visit http://www.epa.gov/climateleadership/2016-climate-leadership-award-winners.