Green Mountain Energy Company Celebrates Milestone – Five Years of Net Zero Emissions!

Renewable energy company achieves aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal of being carbon neutral for fifth year in a row

 

AUSTIN, TEXAS – Green Mountain Energy Company, the nation’s leading competitive retail provider of cleaner energy and carbon offset solutions, is celebrating its fifth consecutive year of net zero emissions.  As a participant in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Climate Leaders program, the company has tracked and reported emissions on a five year goal plan since 2005.

 

Green Mountain has achieved carbon neutrality each year since by taking proactive measures to reduce energy consumption and travel, while balancing out the rest of its footprint and investing in renewable energy and carbon offset projects.

 

“Green Mountain’s mission is to change the way power is made while continuing to reduce our own corporate environmental impact,” said Bill Burden, Chief Environmental Officer for Green Mountain Energy Company.  “Through our participation in the Climate Leaders program we’ve tracked our progress toward staying carbon neutral for half a decade.  We’re really proud of that achievement and we plan on continuing the trend in years to come.”

 

Since the baseline reporting year of 2004, Green Mountain has effectively reduced its corporate carbon footprint by 27 percent, the equivalent of taking over 37,000 cars off the road for one day.  Initiatives influential in helping the company reach its zero emissions milestone include an employee commuting program offering incentives for carpooling or using public transportation, corporate air travel reduction efforts and supporting many different renewable energy and carbon offset projects.  Additionally, the company’s downtown Austin headquarters is LEED Silver certified.

 

"EPA’s Climate Leaders are some of the largest and most competitive companies in manufacturing, finance, information technology and other major sectors of the economy,” said Beth Craig, director of EPA's Climate Protection Partnership Division.  “We applaud Green Mountain Energy Company for achieving its goal to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. They’re proving that they can be both an industry leader, and a leader in the fight against climate change.”

 

 

 

 

About Climate Leaders

Climate Leaders is an EPA industry-government partnership that has worked with companies to develop comprehensive climate change strategies since 2001. While the program is phasing down in 2011 EPA intends to continue to engage with industry on voluntary efforts to measure, report and reduce GHG emissions. For more information about Climate Leaders, visit http://www.epa.gov/climateleaders.

 

About Green Mountain Energy Company

Green Mountain, the nation’s leading competitive retail provider of cleaner energy and carbon offset solutions, was founded in 1997 “to change the way power is made.” The company is the longest serving green power marketer in the U.S. Green Mountain offers consumers and businesses the choice of clean electricity products from renewable sources, such as wind, as well as a variety of carbon offset products. Green Mountain customers have collectively helped avoid over 11.3 billion pounds of CO2 emissions. As a wholly owned subsidiary of NRG Energy (NYSE:NRG), Green Mountain is backed by one of the nation’s largest renewable power producers.  For more information, visit GreenMountain.com.