Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. has recently announced that it has received the 2016 Energy Conservation Center, Japan Chairman’s Award for its energy-saving activities across the company called NESCO (Nissan Energy Saving Collaboration).

The Energy Conservation Center, Japan Chairman’s Award is under the Energy Conservation Grand Prize administered by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The award has gone to a wide range of energy-saving activities and advanced, technology-based energy-saving products, and is aimed to promote energy-saving awareness and energy-saving products.

Nissan’s task-dedicated NESCO team conducts energy-saving audits at Nissan’s production sites by inspecting the way energy is used and suggesting improvements. Based on energy-saving know-how developed in Japan, the NESCO team created an auditor-training program and opened a global training center. There are currently seven teams in Japan and four outside Japan.

The NESCO team’s results include reducing gas consumption by lowering the temperature of the deodorizing system in electrodeposition-coating ovens during the coating process and reducing heater and fan electricity consumption by optimizing the cooling process in continuous carburizing furnaces. Improvements such as these cut CO2 emissions by about 58,000 tons a year globally and by about 11,000 tons in Japan in 2014.

NESCO teams have also recently been working with Nissan’s Alliance partner Renault to reduce CO2 output.