Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy stopped in Madison Friday to laud local business efforts to become more energy efficient.
The businesses she applauded were involved in MPower – an EPA-funded, one-year program that helps businesses become more energy efficient. Since starting in 2009, the program has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by more than 21,000 tons annually, the equivalent of removing 4,200 cars from Wisconsin roads each year.
McCarthy said the EPA is trying to highlight efforts like this.
“It is fundamentally important, not just to the sustainability of Madison, or your businesses, but to the sustainability of this fragile planet,” she said.
Union Cab of Madison is an MPower alumnus that was highlighted during McCarthy's visit. Some of the changes it made during and after its involvement in the program included switching its sedan fleet to hybrid vehicles.
Driver Kate Schachter said having the EPA acknowledge the MPower program is a big deal. “This is a really an honor for the city, for Sustain Dane, and the program to have that kind of federal attention shining on our city,” she says.
Tom Eggert, the executive director of the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council, said more and more businesses in the state are recognizing that sustainability is something customers and employees desire and McCarthy's visit proves that.
“It is on the radar screen of businesses now in Wisconsin,” he says.
Since the MPower program began, more than 70 area businesses have participated, along with nine schools.
