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EWE receives award for sustainable innovation

EWE Box wins its second award

Oldenburg, Germany, 5 February 2010. The German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology yesterday presented the Oldenburg-based company EWE AG with the "Sustainable Innovation Management" award. Held in Berlin, the ceremony acknowledged companies which are making an exemplary commitment to sustainable and forward-looking products, services and processes. This was the sixth time the management consultancy A.T. Kearney and the magazine WirtschaftsWoche had held the nationwide "Best Innovator" competition. Its patron is the German Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, Rainer Brüderle. EWE wowed the judges with innovative products such as the EWE Box. This digital electricity meter enables consumers to monitor their energy consumption with a very high degree of precision. It was also awarded a prize by the non-profit organisation Deutsche Umwelthilfe last year. The device will be launched on the market in the course of this year under the name "EWE trio Smart Box". EWE also impressed the jury with its holistic approach to establishing a future-proof energy supply, in which sustainability and intensive research and development to drive innovative solutions forward play key roles.

EWE's CEO, Dr. Werner Brinker, is delighted about the award: "It shows that the path we have been pursuing since 1996 by consistently building up our telecommunications and IT operations is the right one, and that the hard work is worthwhile," commented Brinker.

Dr. Jörg Hermsmeier, Director of the EWE Research Department, concluded: "The innovation award is an incentive for us to carry on learning, keep improving and help to reform the energy supply system actively and sustainably." EWE intends to continue on its innovative course by intensively researching and further developing network and power generation management, mobility management and tomorrow's domestic energy supply.

In addition to EWE, strong contestants in this category of the innovation competition included BMW, Intel and UPM. Another company from the local region was also successful in the "SME" category – the photo service provider CeWe Color. All in all, some 130 companies entered the competition. The winners were chosen in a process consisting of several stages, which assessed their strategy, organisation, corporate culture, processes and success as innovators. Contestants were asked to provide information about the status of their innovation activities by completing an extensive questionnaire. Judges then visited the 20 finalists' premises. This visit took place in October 2009 at the Zentrum Zukunft in Emstek. Expert presentations, models and a guided tour all gave the jury a chance to see for themselves how EWE is preparing for the future challenges posed by energy supply.

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