The NCEast Alliance (NCEA) in partnership with East Carolina University (ECU) Department of Engineering have been awarded a Pollution Prevention (P2) grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to educate food processors and manufacturers about ways to improve efficiency and profitability all while reducing their environmental footprint through pollution prevention techniques.
The NCEast Alliance (NCEA) in partnership with East Carolina University (ECU) Department of Engineering have been awarded a Pollution Prevention (P2) grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to educate food processors and manufacturers about ways to improve efficiency and profitability all while reducing their environmental footprint through pollution prevention techniques.
The grant supports identifying and contacting food processing companies in the region that would benefit from an assessment of their operation as it relates to the reduction of pollution. The Alliance will connect ECU faculty with appropriate points of contact within each candidate company to engage in the analyses of company operations. Food and beverage industries will have the opportunity to have East Carolina University faculty and students assess the efficiency of their equipment, with specific focus on energy consumption and pollution generation.
NCEast will organize, promote and convene four workshops across the region in partnership with ECU, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) and two sponsoring organizations – the North Carolina Small Business & Technology Development Center (SBTDC) and Frank Door. The workshops will be designed to provide useful information to food processors and manufacturers about ways to improve efficiency while reducing their environmental footprint and developing financial justification for capital expenses that may be required to reduce emissions or achieve waste reduction.
The workshops will address topics such as, “Waste Reduction” and “Environmental Stewardship” with a focus on describing how food processors and manufacturers can improve the efficiency of their operations, improve their profitability, and reduce pollution at the same time. The first workshop will be held in Rocky Mount on June 22nd at the Carolinas Gateway Partnership office.
As a regional economic development agency serving 28 counties in eastern North Carolina, the NCEast Alliance targets specific economic clusters that are most likely to achieve growth. One of the well-established clusters identified for continued growth is value-added agriculture, especially the food and beverage sector that has a very vibrant supply chain in the region.
The NCEast Alliance is a regional, public/private, not-for-profit, economic development corporation serving 28 counties with approximately 1.3 million residents within several small metropolitan and micropolitan areas in eastern North Carolina from the fringe of the Research Triangle to the Atlantic Coast. The Alliance provides advocacy, community capacity building, marketing/lead generation, and assists companies with site location and expansion evaluations. For more information on the NCEast Alliance, visit us at www.nceast.org or visit one of our workforce development sites (www.ncworkready.org or www.stemeast.org).