EPA Names 2013 SmartWay Award Winners

Best Buy, Johnson & Johnson and Lowe’s are among the 55 companies honored by the EPA as industry leaders in supply chain environmental and energy efficiency with its 2013 SmartWay Excellence Awards.

The annual SmartWay awards recognize top truck, intermodal and rail carrier partners that are setting efficiency benchmarks in how they move products and supplies. Shipping and logistics partners also are recognized for superior efficiency and additional actions to reduce freight emissions through effective collaboration, advanced technology and operational practices, a robust system for validating and reporting their SmartWay data and communications and public outreach.

Best Buy, Johnson & Johnson and Lowe’s all received awards in the large shipper category. The EPA chose companies in this category based on environmental performance, use of SmartWay carriers to move their freight, and large freight mileage, the agency says.

Since becoming an EPA partner in 2005, Lowe’s has generated fuel savings of more than 150 million gallons and carbon savings of 1.7 million tons, the company says. The company recently launched a dedicated fleet of natural gas-powered trucks at its regional distribution center in Mount Vernon, Texas. Lowe’s dedicated fleet is among the first serving a major retail distribution center in North America to run solely on natural gas, a cleaner and more economical alternative to diesel fuel.

Lowe’s is working with its third-party carriers to replace all of their diesel-powered, Lowe’s-dedicated fleets with natural gas trucks by the end of 2017. The company was also named as a 2012 SmartWay winner.

Other 2013 winners include Hub Group and Ryder Supply Chain Solutions in the large logistics category and CRST Van Expedited and Penske Logistics in the fleet category for large carriers.

Penske earned its award in part for reducing its annual carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent, nitrous oxide emissions by 40 percent and particulate matter emissions by more than 50 percent, the company says. It achieved these reductions through the use of  idle control, aerodynamic technologies on its fleet, and management controls including monitoring of fuel economy at the driver and route level.

DHL Express, a medium/small carrier award winner, says by the end of this year it will have replaced more than 50 percent of its pick-up and delivery fleet with more fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly vehicles.

In 2012, DHL Express introduced pick-up and delivery vehicles that operate on 100 percent dedicated liquefied petroleum gas. Through the use of LPG, each of these alternative fuel vehicles saves more than 22,587 pounds of CO2 emissions each year, the company says.