The Green Choice

hile DuPont aims high in its internal sustainability goals (see p. 510), it also recognizes the efforts of others, most recently via the 22nd DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation, presented in late May. Among the 13 winners out of 160 entries was IAMC member firm Alcoa, which along with Exal Corp. of Youngstown, Ohio, earned a diamond-level award for its Coil to Can aluminum alloy beverage bottle. Gold-level and notable achievement awards went to fellow IAMC member firms Frito-Lay North America, Coca-Cola Co., ConAgra, Kellogg Co. and Procter & Gamble.

ew IAMC member firm McKesson, based in San Francisco, Calif., in late May announced the location of a $115-million national redistribution center in the Memphis metro area community of Olive Branch, Miss. The project will be an upgrade from the company's existing facility in Memphis, which it will vacate, and will bring 306 new jobs to Mississippi over the next three years. McKesson was the first company to announce it was locating operations in the state since the legislation containing the Mississippi Industry Incentive Financing Revolving Fund was signed into law. In addition to infrastructure funding assistance from DeSoto County and from the City of Olive Branch, the Mississippi Development Authority is providing a total of $4 million from this fund for infrastructure improvements and to assist with preparation costs to help facilitate the project.

epsiCo says it will build approximately 12 new food and beverage plants in China as part of a newly announced plan to invest $2.5 billion in the nation over the next three years, over and above the $1 billion the company has invested there since 2008. PepsiCo currently operates 27 plants and five farms in China, and according to published reports may double its current employee base of 20,000 by 2015. The new push comes at the same time that other territories aren't so welcoming: The company recently saw one of its warehouses, operated by a joint venture with Empresas Polar SA, expropriated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Fellow IAMC member firm Cargill has undergone the same experience recently in Venezuela.

ational-level tensions are not confined to South America. In northern Australia, a new helium production facility from Linde Group (the largest in the southern hemisphere) is being challenged by the government of East Timor, which holds rights to the Bayu Undan field operated by ConocoPhillips, from which Linde is buying unpurified helium, a waste byproduct of liquefied natural gas processing. At press time, the East Timor government was examining its legal options with regard to the Australian government and the companies.

eneral Electric announced in late April that it would locate a $15-million Smart Grid Center of Excellence in Cobb County, Ga., in the metro Atlanta area, that would employ 400 people in R&D and application engineering. The facility will house GE's Digital Energy world headquarters in addition to an engineering lab and an exhibition area. The company and the Georgia Institute of Technology will collaborate on the project, both having received federal funds for that purpose. The project could see as much as $9 million in tax credits over five years, per the State of Georgia's quality jobs incentive program. GE will move into the new headquarters in July, and the customer showcase is scheduled to open in September.

oth the service provider business and the automotive supplier business of Johnson Controls celebrated new projects this spring. First, in April, the company held a grand opening for its 127,000-sq.-ft. (11,798-sq.-m.) seat and door panel plant in West Point, Ga., which will supply the recently opened Kia plant there and which currently employs 300 workers.

A week later, in early May, Johnson Controls WorkPlace Solutions announced it had won a global contract to provide workplace services to IAMC member firm GlaxoSmithKline. The contract builds on an 18-year relationship Johnson Controls has had with GSK as a facility services provider. Johnson Controls will provide GSK with workplace services including technical and engineering services, energy management, project management and pharmaceutical services, for the company's R&D, manufacturing and corporate offices.

In late April, Gov. Rick Perry joined company and community officials for the grand reopening of the Honeywell Specialty Additives facility in Orange, Texas, (right) which was severely damaged by Hurricane Ike in 2008. "Through the hard work and dedication of Honeywell employees, our Orange facility and the surrounding Orange community is even stronger than before Hurricane Ike," said Honeywell Specialty Materials President and CEO Andreas Kramvis. "We are looking forward to continuing to serve our specialty additives customers from our Orange facility for many years to come."

The Honeywell facility in Orange is part of Honeywell Specialty Materials, which provides such materials as fluorine products; specialty films and additives; advanced fibers and composites; intermediates; specialty chemicals; electronic materials and chemicals; and technologies and materials for petroleum refining.