U-Haul has received the 2025 Smart Energy Decisions’ Innovation Award for Circularity, honoring the Company’s longstanding commitment to reuse programs.
At the SED Awards on Sept. 17 in Tucson, Ariz., U-Haul was recognized for decades of implementing circular economy principles in product design, materials recovery, and closed-loop systems that significantly reduce resource extraction, energy use, and emissions.
Three primary strategies and initiatives U-Haul uses to promote circularity are adaptive building reuse, sustainable modular storage (SMS), and the Take-A-Box Leave-A-Box program.
“We’re in an energy-saving business because, fundamentally, U-Haul is specialization of ownership and then sharing use amongst a large group of people,” stated Joe Shoen, CEO of U-Haul Holding Company.
“We believe very strongly that as the timeframe extends out that good business and energy efficiency merge. Everyone, from our lenders to trading agencies to the regulators, are all looking for a short-term result. But it is a long-term situation, and it requires a long-term commitment.”
Dr. Allan Yang, U-Haul Chief Scientist and Sustainability Officer, accepted the Innovation Award at the Smart Energy Decisions event. He was joined by U-Haul Co. of Tucson president Billy Longenbaugh, U-Haul Co. of Southeast Arizona president Alexis Reeves, and fellow U-Haul Sustainability Team Members Brigitte Bavousett and William Kinsey.
Yang noted the Company’s “decades of commitment to circularity, starting with our CEO Joe Shoen’s fundamental policy for adaptive reuse in U-Haul property development.”
Since 2007, U-Haul property acquisition criterion has prioritized adaptive reuse, converting existing and often vacant buildings over new construction. SMS, pioneered in the 1970s, involves repurposing retired U-Haul truck van bodies into self-storage units to serve customers across North America. In U-Haul centers, Take-A-Box Leave-A-Box reuse displays allow customers to freely exchange over one million moving boxes annually, a responsible program that trumpets purpose over profit.
“Each of these U-Haul initiatives proves that circularity isn’t just about keeping materials out of landfills,” Yang explained. “It’s about the massive energy savings when we don’t have to extract, manufacture and transport new materials from scratch.
“It comes down to a simple truth: the most sustainable building material is the one that’s already built; the most efficient storage solution is the one that’s already manufactured; and the best box is the one that’s already made.”
Honoring the importance of collaborations, Yang thanked the U-Haul partners who saw potential where others saw waste, and noted that true innovation often means doing more with what we already have. His awards speech concluded with this crucial value: “When we work together to remove barriers and align policies, we prove that circularity scales.”
A panel of judges chose U-Haul as the sole recipient in the SED Awards’ Circularity category.
During the ceremony, the judges commented: “This project is truly innovative and outside of the box. Some aspects of the project come at no return to U-Haul, such as the box reuse project, which demonstrates an impressive commitment to sustainability.”
Smart Energy Decisions was founded in 2016 and is dedicated to addressing the information needs of commercial and industrial electric power customers. U-Haul garnered national recognition with this award for its contributions to circular economies (cities, states and provinces) throughout North America.
