Carrier Abound won a Top Project of the Year Award in the Digital Transformation category at the 2026 Environment + Energy Leader Awards. This recognition is for digitally transforming the operations of a major home improvement retailer in North America across 2,100 stores. 

The project commenced in 2012 and helped address challenges such as fragmented manual processes for managing HVAC and lighting systems, limited visibility into equipment health and energy consumption, and siloed, disconnected systems. To overcome these challenges, Carrier Abound implemented the digital strategy leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT): 

1. Autonomous Actions – With prior approvals, the platform executed defined actions autonomously through store automation software integrated with the Building Automation System (BAS). 
2. Remote Actions – Predictive insights that could be resolved remotely were handled by the Command Centers through the retailer’s BAS. 
3. Field Actions – Issues requiring on-site interventions were converted into work orders in the retailer’s Work Order Management System. These issues were intelligently grouped into single technician visits, reducing downtime, maintenance costs, truck rolls and emissions. 

This delivered measurable sustainability benefits at scale. The program achieved ~24.8% energy savings in the 12th year of the engagement and saved an estimated 3.36 million metric tons of CO₂ over the project duration¹, demonstrating sustained long-term performance improvement. 

In addition, 92% of store complaints were resolved remotely, avoiding 5,400+ truck rolls and preventing an estimated 884.56 metric tons of CO₂ emissions², while improving response time and technician productivity and delivering $2.73 million in truck-roll cost savings.

The E+E Leader Product & Project Awards have recognized excellence in products, services, and corporate initiatives that drive energy and environmental improvements, for over a decade.

Here's what the judges had to say:

"This submission represents a best-in-class digital transformation project, demonstrating how AI, IoT, and automation can fundamentally reshape operations at massive scale while delivering sustained environmental impact. Carrier Abound clearly articulates the initial challenge, fragmented systems, reactive maintenance, limited visibility, and constrained demand management and shows how these were resolved through a connected, AI-enabled ecosystem spanning more than 2,100 retail stores. The transformation is a mature, enterprise-wide shift from reactive to predictive and autonomous operations.”

"Carrier Abound presents an impressive digital transformation deployment at scale with exceptional measurable outcomes across operational and environmental dimensions. Strengths: 159,000+ connected equipment across 35,000+ sites demonstrates enterprise-scale implementation; sustained results over 12+ years prove genuine impact; specific metrics are compelling (3.36M metric tons CO2, 24.8% energy savings, 51% MTBF improvement, $2.73M cost savings); real customer case study with documented challenges, solutions, and outcomes; integration with existing systems avoids disruptive retrofits.”

¹Calculated to: International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol

²Equivalency calculation: Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator | US EPA