General Motors: Energy performance

Better Buildings, Better Plants Challenge partners strive to decrease portfolio-wide source energy use intensity (EUI) and increase the percent improvement compared to a set baseline. GM's portfolio consists of 29 plants as of 2022. GM's energy management program emphasizes innovative technology solutions, replication of best practices, and non-production shutdowns. Due to COVID-19, the production volumes at multiple facilities were negatively impacted in 2021, negatively impacting energy intensity performance. As a result, GM is working hard to put measures in place for 2022 to improve. In addition, GM has shared its energy efficiency practices with its global industrial partners and planning to do the same through DOE's Better Plants Challenge Program.

Looking at the percent improvement in energy performance across all facilities can provide insight into how an organization is saving energy. Nearly half of GM's facilities participating in the Challenge have improved energy performance by >6% since the baseline year of 2017. Several actions taken by GM at the facility level since 2017 have contributed to its overall energy efficiency improvement. These include direct centrally-managed energy reduction projects, energy performance contracting, direct product program changes (which are product-driven but reduce energy), and locally-managed reduction projects/behavior changes (low cost with quick payback). Eleven of GM's 29 facilities have experienced no improvement or increased energy intensity, indicating the company has room to improve on its already significant energy efficiency accomplishments.

GM produces different products and, as a result, uses different metrics to calculate plant-level energy intensity. Depending on the plant, GM calculates energy intensity in terms of source energy consumed (in MMBtus) divided by the number of vehicles produced, number of engines, or powertrain components produced. The percent change in energy intensity is tracked for each facility on a monthly and annual basis. Additionally, GM normalizes its plant-level numbers to account for changes in production volume and heating and cooling degree days. These metrics are rolled up to the corporate level, with a corporate-wide improvement in energy intensity calculated by taking a weighted average of the percent change in energy intensity at the individual facilities.

Better Plants Water Savings Pilot partners strive to decrease portfolio-wide water use intensity (WUI) and increase the percent improvement compared to a set baseline. GM's portfolio consists of 29 plants as of 2022. GM's water management program emphasizes innovative technology solutions, replication of best practices, and non-production shutdowns. With a water intensity improvement of 10.9% since its baseline year of 2017, GM is on its way to achieving its 20% reduction in water use intensity target in 2027. Similar to energy, COVID-19 negatively impacted GM's water intensity performance.