From planting seeds to revitalizing entire communities, Cummins employees use their creativity and problem-solving skills to deliver measurable environmental benefits around the world.

The third year of the Cummins Environmental Challenge engaged a record number of employees – more than 10,000 – resulting in cleaner, safer and healthier communities around the world. In all, 15 winners were selected from an extremely competitive field of 140 applications representing 21 countries, and each one illustrated a winning combination of environmental impact, employee engagement, innovation, sustainability and community partnership.

In recognition of the outstanding efforts, each project team was awarded $10,000, payable to the nonprofit organization of its choice. Through this program, Cummins employees are living out the company’s commitment to serving and improving the communities in which we live.

Three of the 15 winners of the 2011 Environmental Challenge were projects led by Cummins Power Generation. Here are the winning projects:

Giving Garden: The Ripple Effect – Fridley, Minn., USA
Where one seed is planted, the harvest can be plentiful. In 2010, employees set up a Community Giving Garden next to the Fridley plant of Cummins Power Generation. Employees volunteered their time in the garden and donated all of the fresh produce to local nonprofit organizations to serve clients in need. The garden received a lot of attention, and the following year, giving gardens had cropped up at other Cummins sites outside of Minnesota.  In addition, Cummins inspired and helped support  gardens at several of the low-income housing sites run by one nonprofit organization, empowering the residents to take a direct role in community gardening. The strong interest in community gardening also led to a Six Sigma project to create a standardized process and “garden toolkit.” The resulting project guide is already being distributed and used by Cummins locations around the world.

LaBour Pump Project – Elkhart, Ind., USA
With one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and seated upon a hazardous waste site, the LaBour Pump neighborhood was in dire need of full-scale redevelopment. Cummins Power Generation partnered with the city to create an environmental park to revitalize the impoverished urban community. In the first phase of the project, an astonishing 98 percent of Cummins Elkhart employees were involved. They planted trees, constructed garden plots with reclaimed lumber, spread reclaimed ground cover and helped develop an environmental curriculum for local schools and volunteer groups. The next steps in the multi-year project include wind and solar installations, and construction of a greenhouse. Cummins employees are looking forward to continued involvement in this neighborhood revitalization.

Making Green Schools a Reality – Kent, UK
Partnering with a local school to cut its carbon emissions in half was just the beginning. Cummins Power Generation’s Kent facility provided their own undergraduate placements as mentors to younger students in two local technology schools to inspire careers in science, technology, engineering and math. Working with administrators and teachers, Cummins employees developed an energy and sustainability curriculum at the schools, in which the students’ own recommendations resulted in a biomass boiler and voltage optimization technology installed at one of the partner schools. The program has been so successful that a third school has joined the partnership. Employees will continue their efforts to make school facilities green facilities, and to make sustainable environmental learning a fundamental piece of the education system.

For more information on the Cummins Environmental Challenge, visit the Sustainability website.