WARREN, MI—General Motors is collaborating with DTE Energy to build a new 800-kilowatt solar array at its Warren Transmission plant here. The 2,800 solar panels will generate clean electricity that will go back to the grid.

PRETORIA, South Africa—BMW’s assembly plant here is getting some of its power from cow manure. The company has agreed to a 10-year deal to buy as much as 4.4 megawatts of electricity from a biogas power station about 80 kilometers from the assembly plant. Surrounded by land where approximately 30,000 cattle graze, the power station runs off gas emitted by a fetid mixture of dung and organic waste.

HAGERSTOWN, MD—Volvo Group North America has installed 5,000 solar panels at its power train assembly plant here. The company erected a canopy of solar panels above its parking lot to generate approximately 1.3 megawatts of electricity, enough power for 200 homes.

GOTHENBURG, Sweden—The energy consumption of industrial robots could be cut by up to 40 percent thanks to new motion optimization techniques developed by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

ZEELAND, MI—For the past decade and a half, office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller Inc. has been practicing sustainability: earning a profit, protecting the environment and improving their community.

WASHINGTON—In 2012, manufacturers consumed 24 percent of all the energy used in the United States. No sector of the economy has more to gain from using energy resources more efficiently, but progress on energy efficiency faces a bevy of obstacles, according to a new report from the Department of Energy.

MACUNGIE, PA—The Mack Trucks assembly plant here is among the sites helping Volvo Group North America achieve its goal of reduced energy consumption under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Better Plants Challenge five years earlier than expected.

Close your eyes for a moment and think about the word manufacturing. What image came to mind?

LONDON—The ‘Poo Bus,’ which is powered by biomethane gas generated from human and household waste, is set to go into regular service on the roads of Britain this month. The bus produces less emissions than traditional diesel-powered buses.

OAK RIDGE, TN—The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Whirlpool Corporation are collaborating to design a refrigerator that could cut energy use by up to 40 percent compared with current models.