HP, Best Buy, Lowe’s Among 2012 EPA SmartWay Winners

Distribution services from HP, Best Buy and Lowe’s were three of the 40 freight industry companies honored in the EPA’s 2012 SmartWay Excellence Awards for achievements in moving freight more efficiently while reducing harmful emissions.

Since its launch in 2004, SmartWay partners have benefited from $6.5 billion in fuel savings while strengthening US energy independence by saving 55 million barrels of oil, the EPA says. SmartWay’s clean air achievements include reducing 23.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, 478,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 22,000 tons of particulate matter from the air, according to EPA figures. The SmartWay Excellence Award winners show that it is possible to move more goods, more miles with lower emissions, less energy and at a lower cost, according to the agency.

HP, Best Buy and Lowe’s were all named as 2012 SmartWay Shipper Company Awardees. To qualify in this category shippers must be moving goods more than 500 million miles a year.

Best Buy joined SmartWay in 2007. As of 2009, 61 of the company’s 68 carriers were SmartWay partners. Some 89 percent of Best Buy’s total freight is being handled by SmartWay carriers, an increase of 40 percent over 2007, the EPA says. All Best Buy retail locations prohibit idling while on the property, requiring drivers to shut off trucks during the loading and unloading process. Best Buy provides comfort stations and access to store facilities for drivers to encourage compliance with this policy.

Ikea Distribution Services, SC Johnson and Sears Logistics Services were named as SmartWay’s 2012 mid-sized Shipper Company Awardees. To qualify in this category companies must ship goods between 25 million and 500 million miles a year. SmartWay’s 2012 small shipper awardee is Foremost Farms USA, which moved goods less than 25 million miles.

The full list of winners is as follows:

SmartWay Shipper Company Awardees Best Buy HP Lowe’s IKEA SC Johnson Foremost Farms Sears Holdings

SmartWay Logistics Company Awardee Sharp Freight Systems

SmartWay Carrier Company Awards Orlicks Celadon Mesilla Valley Transportation Swift Heartland Express Dart Knight Transportation Polaris Transportation New Century Transportation Walgreens Dibble Trucking Lake Enterprises May Trucking Ruan AGX FedEx Ground FritoLay C.R. England JBS Carriers Southern Refrigerated Transport Doug Andrus Distributing Prime Lonestar Transportation Palletized Trucking Duncan & Son Lines Pac 9 Poland Spring Dupre Logistics Transpoort Jules Savard J.B. Hunt Schneider National White Arrow

For more information on the awards click here.