American Honda Motor Co, Inc., Honda’s U.S. sales subsidiary, launched a “green dealer” program for 1,300 Honda and Acura dealers in the United States. The program has three levels of achievement (silver, gold, platinum), and recognizes excellence with an Environmental Leadership Award. Silver is earned by cutting total energy consumption by 10%. Gold is for dealers that make continuous improvement above the silver level, and platinum is for dealers that also have earned LEED* green building certification. As of the end of March 2012, ten dealers had already been awarded and 18 dealers had applied under the program. More than 200 other dealers have voluntarily started initiatives to reduce environmental impacts.

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The Leadership in Energy And Environmental Design

Honda’s largest automotive production facility in North America, the Marysville Auto Plant in Ohio, has introduced a hydropower system to generate supplementary electricity at the plant. Air compressor cooling water that falls 10 meters through a pipe from a rooftop cooling tower to an underground sump is used to drive the generator. The development team also created a real-time web-based monitoring system for the equipment. The new micro-hydropower system typically generates 5.5 kilowatts, reducing CO2 emissions by about 35 metric tons per year. The system is being studied for implementation at other Honda plants in North America and around the world.