Legrand recently revealed the final winners of its Energy Marathon 3.0 competition — the company’s Fort Mill, S.C, and Minnetonka, Minn. locations. Previously held in 2014 and 2016, Energy Marathon is a company-wide competition designed to encourage employee teams to save as much energy as possible through ready-to-implement technology/process changes and by reshaping energy usage behaviors.

Based on the length of a marathon, the competition took place over a 26.2-day period in October. The 2019 Energy Marathon was Legrand’s largest ever with 26 competing locations across the United States. This past years’ event also introduced a new format in which similar sites were paired off to compete as a single team.

Winners were declared within three building class categories (warehouse, manufacturing and office). In the warehouse category, the Fort Mill, S.C., and Minnetonka, Minn. sites sustained a 47.3% reduction in energy usage. This percentage is the highest reduction seen in the history of Legrand’s Energy Marathon initiative. Fort Mill focused on optimizing its HVAC system, diligently turning off industrial fans and automating lighting systems. The Minnetonka facility adopted a variety of energy-savings best practices, including turning off unused lights and installing programmable thermostats in the warehouse. In the manufacturing category Denver and St. Louis were the winning sites with a 26.7% energy reduction and Syracuse, N.Y., and Eden Prairie, Minn. were recognized in the office category with a reduction of 19.7%

As Energy Marathon seeks to encourage long-term sustainable changes in energy use, Legrand continued to track meter readings for the top three teams past the end of the event until December 20th, with the ultimate Champion announced at the end of January. In total, from the event’s kickoff to the final reading, the company saved more than 970,000kWh, $97,000, and avoided emitting 531 metric tons of carbon.

“The Energy Marathon continues to demonstrate its potential to change energy behavior, identify new practices to reduce consumption, and spark employee energy awareness and enthusiasm through a friendly competition, said Susan Rochford, Vice President, Energy Efficiency, Sustainability and Public Policy, Legrand North and Central America. “Not only do we achieve substantial results in carbon and cost reduction, but we forge new connections across our rapidly expanding network which provides a lasting benefit to the organization.”