Acuity Brands Selects OpenPages SOX Express for Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

November 22, 2004

Waltham, Mass. - November 22, 2004 - OpenPages, a leading provider of enterprise governance, risk and compliance management (GRCM) solutions, today announced that Acuity Brands (NYSE: AYI) has selected OpenPages Sarbanes-Oxley Express (SOX Express) for its Section 302 and 404 compliance initiatives.

Acuity Brands will deploy SOX Express to streamline its internal control documentation process across all of its locations. It will enable the collection of information regarding ongoing business controls deployment and monitoring, resulting in an efficient and sustainable process. By combining a strong document repository with powerful compliance automation capabilities, SOX Express will facilitate both project management and compliance, using web-based tools to get users up to speed quickly.

“We selected OpenPages SOX Express because we believe it has the strongest functionality for compliance and the easiest interface for end users,” said Karen Holcom, vice president and controller at Acuity Brands. “With close relationships with leading auditing firms, OpenPages will continue to ensure alignment between its solutions and future regulations.”

OpenPages’ SOX Express is an enterprise compliance management solution that reduces the time and resource costs associated with ongoing compliance for Sections 302 and 404. SOX Express is a focused enterprise application that combines powerful document and business process management with flexible reporting capabilities in an extremely easy-to-use environment that enables CEOs, CFOs and financial management officers to monitor adherence to internal controls. SOX Express helps corporations automate significant aspects of their internal controls framework to significantly reduce the overall cost of compliance. Its dashboards can be used by project managers, documentation team members, internal auditors and external auditors to plan, document and test the internal controls of the company, and eventually to attest to the financial statements.

About Acuity Brands
Acuity Brands, Inc., with fiscal year 2004 net sales of over $2.1 billion, is comprised of Acuity Brands Lighting and Acuity Specialty Products. Acuity Brands Lighting is a world leader in lighting fixtures and includes brands such as Lithonia Lighting, Holophane, Peerless, Hydrel, American Electric Lighting, and Gotham. Acuity Specialty Products is a leading provider of specialty chemicals and includes brands such as Zep, Enforcer, and Selig Industries. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Acuity Brands employs approximately 11,000 people and has operations throughout North America and in Europe and Asia.

About OpenPages

OpenPages® is the leading provider of enterprise risk management solutions that optimize business performance. OpenPages empowers the world’s largest companies by unifying governance, risk and compliance across the enterprise and by incorporating risk management into day-to-day business processes. Founded in 1996, the company is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with international offices in Japan and the United Kingdom, and regional offices throughout North America.

For questions or for more information on OpenPages' enterprise risk management solutions, please click here or call us at 781.693.5999.