Giant Texas wind farm to power P&G homecare brands

Consumer goods firm Procter & Gamble has announced that its network of fabric & homecare manufacturing plants in the US will be 100% powered by wind from December 2016.


The clean energy pledge will cover the production of well-known products such as Febreze, Dawn, and Mr Clean.

The commitment is made possible by a new partnership with EDF Renewable Energy (EDF RE) which will see a Texas-based wind farm generate 370,000 MWh of electricity a year for P&G.

The power generated by the windfarm will be equivalent to avoiding more than 200,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually.

P&G claimed that the reduction is equal to 1% of the national targets for electricity emissions called for in Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

Actions speak louder than words

P&G North America fabric care president Shailesh Jejurikar said: “I am delighted that our collaboration with EDF RE continues to provide our consumers with their favourite, high performing brands while reducing our environmental footprint.”

“At P&G, when it comes to sustainability, actions speak louder than words and this move is a significant milestone in delivering that promise. It is incredible that the wind farm will generate enough electricity for all our P&G Fabric and Home Care plants; to put that in context: This is enough electricity to wash a million loads of laundry.”

Business power

Earlier this week, P&G signed up to the White House-sponsored ‘American Business Act on Climate Pledge’. As part of the pledge, the firm agreed to source 30% renewable energy for its plants globally by 2020, with a long term vision to use 100% renewable energy. Back in September P&G also committed to reducing absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020.

Eighty other companies are now signatories of the Pledge, including Apple, Microsoft, and Google. As well as requiring individual actions from signatories, the Pledge calls for an ambitious deal from the Paris climate talks in December.

To celebrate the scale of the collaboration, P&G Fabric & Home Care and EDF RE have constructed a mini-wind farm in Washington DC. The installation is placed on the lawn in front of the Capitol Building and is made up of thousands of spinning pinwheels.

Brad Allen

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