Berry Plastics Group Inc. has selected Ecova, an energy and sustainability management company, to provide services that will assist in reducing its waste generation and consumption of electricity, natural gas, and water. Berry Plastics, a leading provider of consumer plastic packaging and engineered materials, plans to leverage the Ecova Energy and Sustainability Management Platform to gain additional insight into waste generation and utility consumption at its more than 80 U.S. and Canadian facilities. The added visibility and analysis, coupled with Ecova’s recommendations for improvement initiatives, will help Berry Plastics to reduce its waste generation and optimize its utility efficiencies while minimizing associated costs.

As Berry Plastics’ facility footprint has grown, so has its use of automation. As a result, the company’s energy usage has also grown. Leveraging Ecova services such as Bill Audit, Rate Optimization and Energy Procurement will ensure that utility invoices don’t include errors, that utility rates are set appropriately for Berry Plastics’ consumption patterns, and that opportunities in deregulated markets are maximized.

“As a plastics company, we take seriously our role as a sustainable and responsible company,” says Rodgers Greenawalt, executive vice president of operations. “We believe that we can operate and grow a successful business while also pursuing and implementing initiatives that will help foster sustainability. In support of this, we practice sustainability every day through the execution of utility and waste reduction initiatives.

“We look forward to working with Ecova to enhance our current initiatives and explore new opportunities to further reduce utility usage and cost.”

“We have a target of reducing electricity, natural gas, and water intensity by 1% per year, as well as a target of decreasing landfill waste intensity by 5% in 2015 vs. 2014,” said Robert Flores, director of sustainability.

Flores says the entire purpose of the Ecova program is to help better manage the company’s data. “Rather than requiring additional resources to manage the Ecova program, it should reduce the amount of time we spend managing data, thereby allowing us to spend more time on projects to reduce our utility consumption and waste generation,” he says.

Clearly understanding usage patterns at Berry Plastics’ numerous locations is imperative in order to identify opportunities to reduce energy consumption. The use of Ecova’s Resource Benchmarking Report will provide at-a-glance analytics to illustrate high and low resource performers, as well as year-over-year trends across the company’s sites. Ecova will also provide the company with tracking and management for critical resource data, along with a robust suite of services and expert energy consultants to assist in developing an overarching strategy and tactical plan for meeting Berry Plastics’ goals.

“Understanding resource consumption and how to leverage data to save money and improve performance is an essential business need for today’s companies,” said Jana Schmidt, president and CEO of Ecova. “Working with companies, such as Berry Plastics, to develop a plan focused on energy efficiency and cost savings is core to Ecova’s business of total energy and sustainability management.”