ATLANTA, 2016-Oct-07 — /EPR Retail News/ — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recognized The Home Depot®, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, with a 2016 WaterSense® Sustained Excellence Award for its commitment to promoting the value of water efficiency to its customers, encouraging innovation within its vendors and supplier base, and for decreasing water use within its operational footprint.
EPA’s Sustained Excellence Award is the organization’s highest honor for water conservation and this is the second consecutive win for The Home Depot.
• The Home Depot’s annual sales of WaterSense products saved customers 70.4 billion gallons of water; equal to $593 million in avoided water utility costs.
• In 2016, The Home Depot became the first retailer to require that all new store merchandised showerheads must exceed the current WaterSense specification of 2.5 gallons per minute.
• Last year, The Home Depot worked closely with the State of California and the Plumbing Manufacturers Institute to reduce the flow rates of faucets and to plot transition timing for the industry to achieve even lower flow standards.
“We’re honored to be recognized for our commitment to water conservation,” said Ron Jarvis, vice president of environmental for The Home Depot. “WaterSense is the perfect platform from which we are able to create awareness and educate our customers and others across our business,” added Jarvis.
“Over the past 10 years, communities, states, organizations, manufacturers, retailers, and builders across the country have been working with WaterSense to help Americans save water for future generations,” said Joel Beauvais, EPA Office of Water Deputy Assistant Administrator. “I am pleased to see so many of our WaterSense partners making contributions to build the resilience of communities everywhere by helping people use water more efficiently.”
The Home Depot offers over 5,000 WaterSense labeled fixtures and appliances in its stores and online.
For more information on Home Depot’s Eco Options program, visit http://ecooptions.homedepot.com/.
For more information about WaterSense, visit https://www3.epa.gov/watersense/.
About The Home Depot
The Home Depot is the world’s largest home improvement specialty retailer, with 2,276 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. In fiscal 2015, The Home Depot had sales of $88.5 billion and earnings of $7.0 billion. The Company employs more than 385,000 associates. The Home Depot’s stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
About WaterSense®
WaterSense, a partnership program sponsored by EPA, seeks to protect the future of our nation’s water supply by offering people a simple way to use less water with water-efficient products, homes, and services. Since the program began in 2006, WaterSense has helped consumers save 1.5 trillion gallons of water and $32.6 billion in water and energy bills.
For more information, contact:
Aaron Bastian
Corporate Communications Manager
770-384-2892
Aaron_bastian@homedepot.com
Source: The Home Depot