Vermont Law School presented its first Green Business Innovators Award next week to John Casella, chairman and chief executive of Casella Waste Systems.

Casella and his brother Doug started the Rutland-based business in 1975 with one garbage truck. Two years later, the Casella brothers opened the state's first recycling center.

In the intervening 32 years, the company has made recycling, reduction of landfill greenhouse gas emission and renewable energy integral parts of its business.

"Vermont is an incubator for green business and so we looked around the state wanting to honor and hold out as an example somebody who was really doing it and Mr. Casella on several levels was doing that," Dorothy Heinrichs, vice president for institutional advancement at Vermont Law School.