With all the diverse industries that Eaton covers, it's no surprise that their Green Spot submission is a joint effort. John White is director of energy management and environmental solutions within Eaton's electrical group, and Joseph Wolfsberger is VP for EHS at Eaton. Between the two of them they bring decades of experience in engineering, marketing and business development, as well as a unified passion for advancing Eaton's global sustainability operations, to bear on the many issues that confront such a global, diversified manufacturier. And they and their teams, working with an impressive array of government and NGO partners, have worked in concert to develop a pretty comprehensive portfolio of best practices and a program, called Project Vision, that seeks to keep these many green programs working in concert.

Editor's note: Because their submission was a team effort, the responses below are generally attributed to "Eaton."

Company Programs

IW: How are you addressing energy efficiency?

Eaton: Eaton has addressed energy efficiency goals by making a public commitment to the Business Roundtable to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 18% by 2012. We are measuring and reporting on our performance through Eaton's Sustainability Report which, since 2006, is part of Eaton Corporation's Annual Report. Eaton's electrical group is helping to drive the implementation plan at it's own facilities via Project Vision, whose goal is to design the energy efficient prototypical Eaton plant of the future.

Additionally, we have conducted "train-the-trainer" programs on energy efficiency projects throughout the world. As part of this program we have conducted energy audits and helped to develop implementation plans for actual projects -- using what we have learned at our own facilities.

We are also addressing energy efficiency and sustainability in the manufacture of our products. Our Powerware UPS 9395 reduces total energy losses by 50% when compared to traditional units and we have managed to reduce the energy required to manufacture and deliver the product itself by over 80% due to its smaller footprint and size.

IW: Have you evaluated renewable energy production or purchase?

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