GEMI Announces Recipients of Inaugural "GEMI Solution Excellence Award"

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) has announced the recipients of the new awards program, the GEMI Solution Excellence Award.

GEMI's Chair Neville Dias, Director, Reporting & Analysis, Carnival Corporation & plc stated, "I am pleased to announce that GEMI has selected the recipients of the inaugural GEMI Solution Excellence Award to be Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy) and Smithfield Foods.  The Award is to recognize leading organizations, including non-GEMI members that utilize GEMI's tools to improve the environment and their operations."

"Oxy is honored to receive the GEMI Solution Excellence Award.  We use the GEMI Local Water Tool™ for oil and gas water management assessment in our operations around the world.  The GEMI LWT™ provides a consistent framework for performing water management assessments in varied geographies to identify local conditions that warrant special attention, to prioritize sites for review and updating of our water management strategy, and to help us plan for the future," said Charlie Weiss, Oxy's Vice President of Health, Environment and Safety.  "This information is helpful as we engage with communities and stakeholders to address water resource management. For example, we have been working in Oman with government agencies and community members since 2005 to supply potable water to those residing near our operations.  The GEMI LWT™ framework will aid us in identifying similar community partnerships based on local needs."

"Smithfield is honored to receive and accept the GEMI Solution Excellence Award for our use and implementation of the GEMI Local Water Tool™ for water risk assessment.  The use of the GEMI LWT™ allowed us to address water risk internally to better understand the impacts, risks and opportunities associated with their water use at a short list of facilities as the tool is simple, straightforward and complete," stated Bill Gill, AVP Environmental Affairs, Smithfield Foods.  "As a result, we can now respond to stakeholder inquiries, customer surveys, and reporting guidelines related to water risk by referencing the GEMI LWT™ process and results. We are able to better understand where we have potential impact and some of the factors that may affect that impact, which should allow for both our organization and the ecosystem/environmental health of the regions where we operate to best address the overall benefit as our and the local situation changes. In addition, one of our facilities has already begun participating with the local water board as a result of our use of the tool," he added.

Chair of the GEMI Communications Work Group Heather Tansey, Sustainability Manager at 3M noted that "this award will be presented annually to any entity (e.g. companies, non-governmental organizations, universities, etc.) that demonstrates excellent environmental, social, and economic results through the innovative use of one or more of GEMI's tools.  We encourage users of the GEMI solution tools to submit an award application for the 2014 award. The award application may be found on the GEMI web site."  

GEMI's Solution Tools Chair, Steve Shedroff, HSE Data Systems Leader, Procter & Gamble stated, "Many organizations using the GEMI solution tools to improve their environmental and sustainability activities within their operations.  This award recognizes those organizations and provides an opportunity for GEMI to leverage this information to be able to share these successes with the public."  He added, "In addition, we are seeking to learn more about how the GEMI tools are being utilized so that we can refine our library of solution tools to provide the most value to business and the environment."

Submissions were evaluated by the GEMI award selection committee based on the following criteria: innovative use / application of a GEMI tool; organizational benefits (improved work process or productivity) gained from GEMI tool use; and sustainability impact resulting from GEMI tool use in the following categories: Environmental, Economic and Social.  The use of the GEMI tool can be in any time period, and it is not restricted to the current reporting year.  GEMI understands that it may take time to understand the full beneficial impact from the use of a tool.  Applications must be submitted by September 5 to be considered for the 2014 award.

Completed applications should be sent via email to [email protected]  with the subject line "GEMI 2014 Excellence Award Nomination Application".  Applications will be accepted at any time but must be emailed by September 5^th of the current year to be considered for the award within that year.  

GEMI members include: 3M; Abbott; Ashland Inc.; Biogen Idec; BNSF Railway Company; Carnival Corporation & plc; ConAgra Foods; ConocoPhillips; ENI; FedEx; Halliburton; Johnson Controls, Inc.; Koch Industries; Kraft Foods Group Inc.; Legrand; Merck & Company, Inc.; Occidental Petroleum Corporation; Perdue Farms Incorporated; Phillips 66; The Procter & Gamble Company; The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company; Sealed Air Corporation; Smithfield Foods, Inc.; Southern Company; Tennant Company; Union Pacific Railroad; and W.W. Grainger.

For more information about GEMI please visit GEMI's website at www.gemi.org

For More Information Contact: Amy Goldman, GEMI, 202-296-7449

SOURCE Global Environmental Management Initiative