Business & Tech

SC Johnson Receives Award For Wind Turbines

The company has long made efforts to go green and now they have furthered that commitment to renewable energy by installing the largest onsite, company-owned wind turbines in the midwest.

RENEW Wisconsin, a nonprofit advocate for renewable energy, has lauded SC Johnson’s efforts to power up their manufacturing operations in Mount Pleasant with wind turbines.

SC Johnson received the "Renewable Energy Customer-Generator of the Year” after they installed two wind turbines, which have 135-foot-long blades and produce about eight million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity annually, enough to power 700 homes in a year.

Kelly M. Semrau, senior vice president of global corporate affairs, communication and sustainability at SC Johnson, expressed her gratitude for the award.

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"To be recognized with other Wisconsin companies that also champion clean energy is truly an honor and speaks to the priorities of the business community in our state," she stated.

The turbines are the largest onsite, company-owned wind turbine manufacturing project in the midwest. The addition of wind power to the plant’s existing energy production means that the facility is now able to produce an average of 100 percent of its electrical energy onsite, reducing the plant's carbon emissions by 6,000 metric tons annually, according to the company.

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In December, Fisk Johnson, SC Johnson chairman and CEO, said the wind turbines were a personal passion of his and stand as a testament to the company’s longtime commitment to the environment.

“Every time somebody comes into our entrance of this facility, they can’t help but get a giant visual reminder of a commitment that we have made as a company to environmental progress,” he said.

Johnson dedicated the turbines in honor of his mother Imogene Powers Johnson and father Samuel C. Johnson.

“These wind turbines are just one part of my family’s and the company’s decades long and strong commitment to improving the environment,” Johnson said, noting that his father was inducted into Fortune Magazine’s Hall of Fame for his environmental leadership and his mother is a naturalist.

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