BELVIDERE (WIFR) -- In a positive step toward improving energy efficiency, local Belvidere Dean Foods plant has met the requirements for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA’s) “ENERGY STAR Challenge for Industry” by reducing its energy intensity by 11.4 percent.
The ENERGY STAR Challenge is a national call-to-action to improve energy efficiency of America’s commercial and industrial buildings. The U.S. manufacturing industry is responsible for nearly 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and spends almost $100 billion annually on energy. Under the umbrella of the ENERGY STAR Challenge for Industry, EPA is working with Dean Foods and other companies to fight climate change through improvements in energy efficiency.
“It’s an honor to have achieved the ENERGY STAR Challenge,” said Dale Foltz, plant manager of the Belvidere Dean Foods plant. “We are very proud of the work that our plant has done to help protect the environment, and we will continue to keep our environmental impact as low as possible by improving our energy performance.”
In its efforts to meet the ENERGY STAR Challenge, Dean Foods has optimized energy consumption by utilizing real time energy measurement and expanded controls, in addition to employing many other environmentally friendly initiatives ranging from the use of high efficiency lighting, variable frequency drives, water recovery, thermal recovery and re-use.
Seventeen other Dean Foods manufacturing plants in the following cities have met the ENERGY STAR challenge: Athens, TN; Billings, MT; Boise, ID; Bridgeton, NJ; El Paso, TX; High Point, NC; Houston, TX; Le Mars, IA; Livonia, MI; Mount Crawford, VA; Rensselaer, NY; Salt Lake City, UT; Spartanburg, SC; Thief River Falls, MN; Tulare, CA; Waukesha, WI; White Bear Lake, MN.
Dean Foods is an Energy Star Partner and has ranked as one of the top consumer products companies on the Carbon Disclosure Project's Leadership Index for three of the past four years. The company first published environmental sustainability goals in 2009. Earlier this year, the company released new 2020 environmental sustainability goals which include reducing greenhouse gases 25% and energy use 20% by 2020.
