General Motors announced its goal to reduce CO2 emissions from its North American manufacturing facilities by 40 percent by 2010, based on 2000 levels. GM is setting this target as part of its voluntary partnership in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency??s (EPA) Climate Leaders program. This reduction would equal 4.5 million metric tons and equate to annual emissions from the power consumed by 432,692 U.S. households.

The EPA??s Climate Leaders initiative is a voluntary program between industry and government that works with companies to develop long-term comprehensive climate change strategies. Companies are challenged to set aggressive, corporate-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals and are required to report out and document progress on an annual basis.

When it first joined the program in 2002 as a founding member, GM established a goal to reduce U.S. facility CO2 emissions by 10 percent by 2005, based on 2000 levels. The company surpassed this target in 2003 with reductions of 11.7 percent. To date, since 2000, GM has reduced U.S. facility emissions by 25 percent, or 3 million metric tons, which would equal the annual emissions from the power consumed by 288,000 U.S. households.

GM??s CO2 reductions can be largely attributed to numerous efforts by the company to increase energy efficiency, reduce waste, increase the use of renewable resources such as landfill gas and solar power, and optimize efficiencies across all aspects of the manufacturing process. For example, GM is the largest corporate user of landfill gas in the U.S. This effort results in significant reductions of CO2 emissions. Another example is the gold certification that GM??s Lansing Delta Township Assembly Plant recently earned from the U.S. Green Building Council??s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program for superior energy and environmental design and construction. Among other things, the facility is expected to save over 30 million kwh of electricity over the first ten years of operations. It is initiatives like these that have helped GM to make real strides in reducing CO2 emissions.

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