GREENSBORO, N.C. – Volvo Group North America was recently recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy for reducing waste at several North American facilities.

Volvo received the DOE’s Better Plants Better Practice Award in recognition of its four U.S. manufacturing facilities that are certified landfill-free.

“Reducing and eliminating landfill waste is imperative to helping protect our greatest resource – the environment,” said Rick Robinson, Volvo Group North America director of health, safety and environment. “We are pleased that our efforts were recognized by the DOE’s Better Buildings, Better Plants program, and we hope to continue moving toward landfill-free at all of the Volvo Group’s North American facilities.”

Volvo Group says it has three other sites in the process of becoming landfill-free-certified.

The Volvo Group began working toward landfill-free status at its North American sites by conducting multiple studies to identify reduction opportunities and developed plant-level initiatives to facilitate waste reduction, reuse and recycling.

The Volvo Group also benchmarked itself against peer companies in the manufacturing industry to determine best practices and created the Landfill-Free Facilities Operational Waste Directive to establish a definition for landfill-free (less than 1% of operational waste sent to landfill) and create a process for facilities to achieve Volvo Group landfill-free certification.

The certification process includes the documentation and mapping of all waste types, implementation of waste reduction, reuse and recycling program and sustaining landfill-free status for a minimum of 12 months. Certified sites must apply to the Volvo Group Environmental Committee for re-certification every three years.