GE Appliances & Lighting has won the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR® Sustained Excellence Award for the seventh consecutive year.

GE Appliances & Lighting supports the ENERGY STAR® program through a variety of initiatives, including training sales employees, retailers and distributors; promoting ENERGY STAR®-qualified products; and recycling at company locations.
 
According to GE Lighting, it offered a total of 501 ENERGY STAR®-qualified LED and CFL products in 2011 — more than at any point in its history and 29 percent more than in 2010. Approximately three-fourths of all GE Lighting CFL and LED products sold in the United States in 2011 were ENERGY STAR® qualified.

GE was the first lighting manufacturer in the U.S. to receive ENERGY STAR® qualification for an omnidirectional LED bulb designed to replace a standard incandescent bulb.

The National Christmas Tree donned GE branded lighting for the 49th straight year; it sparkled in 2011 with a newfound theatrical effect enabled by thousands of GE branded Color Effects® programmable, color-changing, ENERGY STAR®-qualified LED lights.

In 2011, almost 70 percent of GE’s total dollar sales from appliances came from ENERGY STAR®-qualified models. The company introduced 140 new ENERGY STAR® appliances in 2011, for a total of more than 490 ENERGY STAR®-qualified base models.

GE invested $50 million in 2011 ENERGY STAR®-qualified products, and developed, introduced or launched many design innovations for energy efficiency.

Other innovative products include the newly redesigned GeoSpring hybrid water heater that uses 62 percent less electricity than a standard electric water heater and GE’s first ENERGY STAR®-qualified range hood that uses GE CFL lights and quiet design venting to minimize noise levels.