SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is today awarding Verallia North America, a glass container manufacturer and part of Saint-Gobain Inc., with the nation’s prestigious ENERGY STAR award.  The high performance facility located in Fairfield, Calif., is being recognized for its impressive energy efficiency, being rated in the top two percent of warehousing facilities nationwide.

The facility is a distribution center built primarily to serve the bottling and distribution needs of Northern California’s food and wine industries, especially vineyards in neighboring Napa and Sonoma.  In the case of the Fairfield distribution center, the majority of energy consumption in the facility is lighting.  The 24 hour, five-day-a-week center has 64 docks, 10,000 square feet of office space, and more than 1 million square feet of storage and warehouse space.  By installing high-efficiency lighting throughout the distribution center, Verallia was able to reduce its carbon foot-print by 1,077 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually (the equivalent of 2,505 barrels of oil). This reduction in CO2 emissions saved the company an estimated $210,000 annually.

"We congratulate this ENERGY STAR award winner for their commitment to saving energy and cutting greenhouse gas emissions," said Stephanie Valentine, manager of EPA's Energy Star program in the Pacific Southwest . "Not only are they helping the environment, they're helping their bottom line, driving demand, and inspiring innovation."

The Fairfield facility was recognized for a high level of energy efficiency because the site costs measurably less to operate and improves the quality of the environment by using prudent energy management strategies and technologies.

“When we set out to build the warehouse we wanted it to be as efficient and sustainable as possible and made the appropriate investments to make that a reality,” said Brad Runda, Energy Manager for Saint-Gobain, including Verallia North America. “We began targeting the biggest energy users in the facility and looked for the most efficient systems to install so that we would not only reduce operational costs, but to also have less impact on the environment.”

“As a company, in all of our operations across the country, we are constantly evaluating energy usage but more importantly analyzing how we can implement processes, procedures and best practices to reduce consumption and its environmental impact,” said Joseph R. Grewe, President and CEO. “The cost reduction realized from these actions is certainly an added benefit. The Fairfield distribution center is a great example of these initiatives and we are delighted to be receiving the ENERGY STAR award for the effort.”

The EPA’s National Energy Performance Rating System gave the distribution center a score of 98 out of 100, rating only two percent of all warehousing facilities in the U.S. as more efficient than Fairfield.  An ENERGY STAR qualified facility meets strict energy performance standards set by EPA and uses less energy, is less expensive to operate, and causes fewer greenhouse gas emissions than its peers.

The ENERGY STAR award for Fairfield is part of a company-wide sustainability initiative which has gained a national presence with Verallia being the first (and, to date, only) glass container manufacturer to earn the EPA’s ENERGY STAR®, Partner of the Year Award (2009 and 2010) for its energy conservation efforts.

Verallia North America is a major glass container manufacturer in the United States and produces Verallia brand glass bottles and jars for the wine, beer, beverage, spirits, and food container markets.  Its Fairfield distribution center is the first building utilized by Saint-Gobain to be awarded with the ENERGY STAR label.

The EPA will present Verallia with the award today in Fairfield, Calif. at the distribution facility located at 2600 Stanford Court.  The ENERGY STAR award presentation will beginat 11a.m. PT.

To download hi-res photos of the energy saving facility please visit:  http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/names/r09_2011-1-28_Verallia.