All News Releases By Date

Home Depot Honored for Educating Employees About WaterSense Helping Americans Save Water, Money on Utility Bills

Release Date: 10/04/2012
Contact Information: Davina Marraccini, 404-562-8293 (direct), 404-562-8400 (main), [email protected]

ATLANTA – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) honored The Home Depot with the 2012 WaterSense Excellence Award for Employee Education. WaterSense-labeled products and more than 2,600 WaterSense partners nationwide have helped American businesses and households save 287 billion gallons of water and $4.7 billion in water and energy bills.

“WaterSense is proud to partner with these champions of water efficiency who share our mission to protect the future of our nation’s water supply,” said Nancy Stoner, EPA’s acting Assistant Administrator for Water.

The WaterSense awards program recognizes WaterSense partners who help advance the overall mission of WaterSense, increase awareness of the WaterSense brand in a measurable way, and demonstrate overall excellence in the water efficiency arena.

Excellence Award for Employee Education
The Home Depot trained its more than 300,000 associates in 2011 on the high-performance and water-saving benefits of WaterSense labeled products. Efforts included online training modules, a “Green Team” program, pages on The Home Depot’s intranet, monthly merchant updates, product knowledge evaluations, and conversations on The Home Depot’s social networking website, The Warehouse. Associates in all 1,975 stores were equipped to market and educate customers from homes and businesses nationwide on the economic and environmental value of WaterSense labeled products.

The WaterSense Excellence Awards and Partners of the Year Awards were presented at the WaterSmart Innovations conference in Las Vegas, Nev. WaterSense is a partnership program sponsored by EPA, and seeks to protect the future of our nation's water supply by offering people a simple way to use less water with water-efficient products, new homes, and services.

More on the 2012 WaterSense Partners of the Year and Excellence Award winners: www.epa.gov/watersense

Connect with EPA Region 4 on Facebook: www.facebook.com/eparegion4

And on Twitter: @USEPASoutheast