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Johnson Controls, Dow Chemical Added to Pew Center's Green Business Council

Energy efficiency giant Johnson Controls and Dow Chemical have been named to the prestigious Pew Center Business Environmental Leadership Council.

Energy efficiency giant Johnson Controls and Dow Chemical Company have been named to the Pew Center's Business Environmental Leadership Council, joining a roster of top firms that were selected to work with the prestigious group in recognition of their corporate efforts to address climate change.

"We're honored with this recognition of our climate action initiatives," Johnson Controls Chairman and CEO Steve Roell said in a statement today. "As partners with the other members of the BELC and the Pew Center, we are committed to making the world more comfortable, safe and sustainable by helping our customers around the world address global climate change."

"We are very excited about joining the Business Environmental Leadership Council," said David Kepler, the Dow executive vice president who serves as the firm's chief sustainability officer. "We look forward to working with the Pew Center on solutions to slow, stop, and reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions here in the U.S. and around the world."

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change established its Business Environmental Leadership Council 10 years ago. It is now the
largest association of its kind based in the United States. The organization focuses on meeting and resolving the challenges posed by climate change.

Johnson Controls, based in Milwaukee, Wisc., has 140,000 employees in more than 1,300 locations serving customers in 125 countries. The diversified industrial company's range of business includes products and services to manage energy use, security and other systems in buildings, manufacturing batteries for automobiles and hybrid-electric vehicles and providing innovative automotive interiors.

The firm said it has saved its customers $1.5 billion in energy costs and 11.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions since January 2000. In terms of its own performance, Johnson Controls has pledged to slash the firm's total U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions' intensity per dollar of revenue by 30 percent from 2002 to 2012. As a partner in the Clinton Climate Initiative, the company also vowed to work with 15 major cities worldwide to reduce emissions by improving energy usage in buildings.

Dow, based in the Midland, Mich., has annual sales of $54 billion and 46,000 employees worldwide as a diversified chemical company that helps provide products and services including fresh water, food, pharmaceuticals, paints, packaging and personal care products.

Dow's green commitment includes reducing its absolute greenhouse gas emissions by more than 20 percent in the past 18 years. The company has also cut its energy usage by 1,400 trillion BTUs since 1994. The moves have prevented 70 million metric tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere, Dow said.

In all, 44 companies representing over $2 trillion in combined revenue and almost 4 million employees are members of the Pew Center's Business Environmental Leadership Council.

The others are ABB, Air Products, Alcoa Inc., American Electric Power, Bank of America, BASF, Baxter International Inc., The Boeing Company, BP, California Portland Cement, CH2M HILL, Citi, Cummins Inc., Deere & Company, Deutsche Telekom, DTE Energy, Duke Energy, DuPont, Entergy, Exelon, GE, Hewlett-Packard Company, Holcim (US) Inc., IBM, Intel, Interface Inc., Lockheed Martin, Marsh, Inc., Novartis, Ontario Power Generation, PG&E Corporation, PNM Resources, Rio Tinto, Rohm and Haas, Royal Dutch/Shell, SC Johnson, Toyota, TransAlta, United Technologies, Weyerhaeuser, Whirlpool Corporation, and Wisconsin Energy Corporation.

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