Commercial, Energy Efficiency, GHG Emissions, Regulation  -  May 21, 2019

General Mills hits efficiency targets ahead of schedule

General Mills has exceeded its 10-year goal to improve energy efficiency at its 26 largest U.S.-based plants by 20% four years ahead of plan.

The Department of Energy announced May 17 that the global food manufacturer saw a total efficiency improvement of 20.4% since 2012.

In 2018, General Mills implemented 60 energy efficiency projects across the country, which saved 12 million kWh, delivered $4.8 million in cost savings and avoided nearly 6,000 metric tons of CO2e of GHG emissions. In the six years since establishing these goals, the company has offset over 2 Million MMBTU's of energy.

"We are honored to be recognized by the DOE for our progress to improve our efficiency and reduce our energy consumption," John Church, chief supply chain officer and global business solutions officer at General Mills, said in a statement. "We started this journey by looking within our walls back in 2005 and since then have extended our commitments and work across our entire value chain. We have to own the entirety of our impact, and this is one of the many ways General Mills is working to reduce our impact on the environment."

Each General Mills production facility has a target to reduce energy use by 2% annually. During fiscal 2018, this rate decreased by 2% compared to the prior year; absolute energy use decreased by 7%. 

Daren Kaiser, global energy strategy leader, General Mills, is one of the keynote speakers at the upcoming Smart Energy Decisions Distributed Energy Forum, June 24-26 at the Gaylord Rockies in Denver. For more information, click here.

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