Environmental Commitment

Plants

Conserving Resources

GM conducts an annual Energy Project Competition as part of the WE CARE awards program to recognize outstanding projects completed during the year. A Materials Conservation/Pollution Prevention category is also included in the WE CARE awards.

In 1996, a formalized Facility Energy Conservation Program was initiated to increase emphasis on energy conservation and identify the projects being undertaken.

GMCL has an energy management system that maintains control of compressed air, lighting, equipment power utilization, and steam and innovative energy savings technologies such as solar building walls and fuel conversions within manufacturing and support facilities.

GMCL has reduced energy consumption by more than 19 percent since 1995, closing in on internal goals nearly four years ahead of schedule.

The GM de Mexico (GMM) Ramos Arizpe complex has reduced well water withdrawal by 72 percent from 1986 levels, and implementation of the Reverse Osmosis Reject Recovery System has increased the efficiency of well water utilization by 25 percent (from 67 percent to 92 percent).

The GMM Silao Assembly plant has reduced water consumption by 40 percent since start of production (1996) due to improvements in the areas of humidification, phosphate process rinse water utilization, and optimization of de-ionized water system.

GMB is committed to the preservation of forests and the animal species that live there. At the Cruz Alta Proving Ground, for example, the test roads and tracks sit amid an extensive forest reserve of 4.6 million square meters, including 2.27 million square meters of reforested trees. The Proving Ground also features 100,000 square meters of Atlantic Forest original vegetation, 10,000 planted fruit trees and more than 1 million square meters of lawns. In addition, GMB recently partnered with IBAMA, the Brazilian Environment Protection Agency, to monitor the abundant proliferation of capybaras at that location.

In Michigan, GM reached an aggreement with local units of government and state and federal trustees to acquire, preserve, and enhance more than 1600 acres of land to provide protected habitat for threatened and endangered species.

Fort Wayne Assembly:

  • Natural gas usage was reduced when the plant replaced the catalyst beds in the paint oven incinerators and the operating temperature of the incinerator was lowered from 800 F to 700 F while maintaining VOC destruction efficiency.

  • The water test booth was converted from a continuous fed water supply to a recirculating system with filters so that the water can be reused. This reduced the water usage by at least 60 percent.

Saginaw Metal Casting Operations:

  • Saginaw Metal Casting Operations installed a closed loop water recycle system, eliminating discharges to the Saginaw River. The plant reuses over 20 million gallons per day of treated process water.

Saturn Plants:

  • Henkel Chemical Management (HCM), Henkel Surface Technologies (HST), and members of the Phosphate/e-coat team in Body Systems paint analyzed water leaving the phosphate pre-treatment system in stage-10. Because they found the water flow was good, it was re-directed for use as rinse water in the stage-8 reservoir instead of going to drain.The 'win' was a large savings reducing the flow to process waste and eliminating city water for stage-8. Over 21 million gallons of water have been saved.

  • Saturn Corporation located in Spring Hill, Tennessee is implementing an innovative approach in natural landscape conservation and protection. Through a partnership with the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Saturn is integrating a long-term ecological perspective into the management of its 2,500 acres. The approach integrates landscape ecology with biodiversity enhancement, water quality improvement, and aesthetics into day-to-day management. Saturn received the 1999 Natural Heritage Conservation Award from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation for this initiative.

Wentzville, MO Plant:

  • The General Motors Wentzville facility, manufacturing the Chevrolet Express and the GMC truck, earned the 2001 Governor's Pollution Prevention Award for Management Systems. GM was certified to a Registrar Accreditation Board (RAB) accredited third party certification to ISO 14001, the international standard for establishing an Environmental Management System (EMS). Developing the EMS was a fourteen-month process that included assembling a cross-function team, which had one representative from each of the 20 areas of the plant. This process also included employee EMS awareness training for the each of the facility's 2,500 employees. The facility is currently investigating opportunities for recycling fly and bottom ash and reducing electricity usage. Over the past three years, the employees have recycled 8,328 tons of cardboard, 776 tons of wood, and 3,497 tons of steel and drums.