Kariya City, Japan - Once again, DENSO Corporation (DNJP) is seeing green-as in environmental preservation green.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded DNJP the 2002 EPA Climate Protection Award at the agency's EarthTechnologies Forum in March. The award recognizes exemplary efforts and achievements in protecting the climate.

The award was granted to DENSO's Water Heater DesignTeam for developing and marketing the world's first mass-produced CO₂ refrigerant, heat-pump water heater for households.Team members include DNJP, Tokyo Electric Power Company and Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry inTokyo. As announced in our SAE 2002 World Congress news conference, DENSO is working on developing a CO₂ air conditioning system for use in vehicles.

Compared to a combustion-type water heater, this water heater reduces the amount of CO₂ emissions by approximately 50 percent due to its innovative design and energy-saving features.

"By combining the technological strength and know-how of the three organizations, we were able to achieve extraordinary results with our water heater design," said Koichi Fukaya, managing director and worldwide head of Thermal Systems Division, DNJP.

This is the second major environmental award earned by DENSO within the last six months. As announced in the spring issue of Vision, an environmental rating survey conducted by Innovest StrategicValue Advisors, ranked DENSO first among 18 automotive supplier companies for environmental performance.