3M Receives Energy Efficiency Award at U.S. Department of Energy's Better Buildings, Better Plants Summit

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has presented 3M with a Better Practice award for the company’s energy saving efforts. 3M received the award during the DOE’s Better Buildings, Better Plants Summit, an event that recognizes partners for implementing innovative energy-saving practices.

3M received the Better Practice Award because of its efforts with Manual 81 -- a corporate energy efficiency policy published in 2021 that works as a guideline for all facility projects. Manual 81 provides basic information for incorporating energy-efficient design into projects and sets the minimum energy-efficiency requirements for all 3M facility projects.

Its main goal is making sure new installations are efficient and maximize energy-efficiency until the end of the life cycle. 3M’s new installations, which meet Manual 81 requirements, saved 6,676,000 MMBtu and 272,000 tons of CO2.

The DOE promotes the Better Buildings, Better Plants Summit as an event to discuss decarbonization, sustainability and energy-efficiency advances and achievements. This year’s summit featured two 3M employees as presenters.

Andrew Hejnar, 3M energy manager, focused on the non-energy bonus points of becoming energy efficient in a presentation he gave at the summit.

“It was a very good experience, with many workshops and the ability to network. It was valuable and helped with knowledge building,” Hejnar said.

Kalie Lazarou, a senior energy engineer at 3M, also presented at the Better Builds, Better Plants Summit.

It was great to meet other industrial partners of the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Better Plants program, Kalie said. “We discussed energy efficiency programs and decarbonization efforts at each of our organizations.”

Last year, 3M won the Better Project Award at the 2021 Better Buildings, Better Plants Summit for implementing a real-time battery-less steam trap cloud monitoring system that saves 10.6 million pounds of steam per year at its Brookings, South Dakota, plant.

As a partner of the Better Buildings Challenge, 3M has met its initial goal by improving energy intensity by 25% cumulatively over nine years. The company has set a new goal of improving energy intensity by an additional 30% over ten years.

3M is committed to responsible environmental stewardship and protecting natural resources. 3M plans to invest $1 billion over the next 20 years to accelerate its environmental goals, including new commitments to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, reduce water use 25% by 2030, enhance the quality of water returned to the environment after use in manufacturing, and reduce use of virgin fossil-based plastic by 125 million pounds (nearly 56,700 metric tons) by 2025.

Learn more about 3M's commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability here