Sustainability Leadership Awards

The Casella Sustainability Leadership Awards represent innovation and commitment to creating a better tomorrow by showcasing each recipient’s sustainable material management practices. Recipients were selected from a range of segments, including municipalities, colleges and universities, industrial manufacturers, food and beverage producers, and more.
  • Sustainability Leadership Awards
Casella is pleased to announce that six of its customers were recently honored for their leadership in sustainability as part of Casella's annual Sustainability Leadership Awards.

This year’s award recipients include Boston University, the City of Worcester, M.A., Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast, Purina, Wake Robin, and the Worcester Red Sox, who stood out amongst their peers in their efforts to reach their sustainability goals.

“We are thrilled to acknowledge and celebrate the sustainability achievements of these organizations with our 2023 Sustainability Leadership Awards. This year’s recipients represent innovation and leadership in the sustainability space, and we are honored to work alongside them providing services to help advance their materials management initiatives. As our own sustainability journey evolves and continues forward, we are grateful to all our customers, who inspire us to continuously improve each day, and we look forward to honoring them in this manner each year.”
- John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO

Learn More About This Year's Winners

Boston University
Boston University has entrusted Casella to help implement one of the country’s leading campus resource management and zero-waste strategies. Since launch, Casella has supported many of the campus’ initiatives including compost pilot programs, zero-waste events, a lab plastics recycling pilot program, a sustainability intern program, waste audits, and more, as well as worked to right-size service and improve efficiencies across campus using innovative technology.
City of Worcester
The City of Worcester, Massachusetts is one of Casella’s largest municipal partners across the company’s operating footprint. The city has been dedicated to improving recycling quality by reducing contamination and, together with Casella, deployed dozens of measures to improve recycling habits, including the incorporation of new bins, educational materials, curbside audits, bin tagging, and community events, resulting in an almost 50 percent reduction in contamination. Their efforts are setting the standard for other municipalities in Central Massachusetts and beyond.
Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast
Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast is one of the nation’s largest Coca-Cola bottlers. Since 2016, the partnership between Coca-Cola Northeast and Casella has grown to encompass 26 branches, 46 vendors, and 36 managed waste and recycling streams. Today, Coca-Cola Northeast locations have collectively contributed to an impressive diversion rate of 93.7 percent, a testament to their devotion of time, effort, and resources to creating a more sustainable future for generations to come.
Purina
Purina’s manufacturing facility in Allentown, Pennsylvania produces quality food for pets while implementing sustainable business practices. In collaboration with Casella, Purina has prioritized the recovery of organics, cardboard, LDPE film, and pallets, in addition to helping redirect an additional 2,300 tons per year of unsellable pet food away from incineration.
Wake Robin
Wake Robin, a continuing care retirement community in Shelburne, Vermont, has made the responsible stewardship of resources part of its core mission. The community has fully implemented Casella’s Zero-Sort Recycling, compost, and municipal solid waste services, in addition to establishing their own initiatives, such as the Wake Robin Green Committee and Climate Action Taskforce, to further explore and expand on-site sustainability programs with the support of residents, staff, and administration.
Worcester Red Sox
The WooSox, Triple-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, in Worcester, Massachusetts took the field at Polar Park for its first home game in May 2021, marking the redevelopment of a 12-acre parking lot brownfield into a valued community resource. As the stadium’s preferred waste and recycling provider, Casella has proudly supported the WooSox’s commitment to environmental stewardship with waste, recycling, and organics services while providing educational resources for the Worcester community.

CABOT/AGRI-MARK

Cabot/Agri-Mark is the Northeast’s premier dairy farmers cooperative with operating locations in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York. As stewards of the land, Cabot/Agri-Mark has a longstanding focus on material sustainability which includes practices such as comprehensive industrial recycling, de-packaging for recovery, and organic food product reclamation.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES

GlobalFoundries, one of the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers, collaborated with Casella’s resource solutions to achieve an impressive 84 percent recycling rate at its Essex, Vermont facility in 2021, up from 25 percent in 2018. Operating worldwide, the company has a dedicated recovery space staffed by Casella employees who bale, sort, and ship materials, and recently added a HDPE drum baler that has improved both hauling logistics and costs for the company.

MIDDLEBURY NATURAL FOODS CO-OP

Middlebury Natural Foods Co-Op in Middlebury, Vermont is the perfect example of a smaller customer, making an important impact. The co-op has successfully deployed Casella recycling, organics, and solutions services to achieve an impressive 74 percent recycling rate and continues to prioritize sustainable practices throughout their day-to-day operations in the forms of food composting, cardboard collection, and promotion of reusable packaging.

RHODE ISLAND RESOURCE RECOVER CORPORATION

Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation operates one of the largest and most successful leaf and yard trimmings compost facilities in the northeast. With a mission of providing safe, environmentally compliant, clean, and affordable solid waste and recycling services to the Rhode Island community, Casella has collaborated with RIRRC to produce and market a top-quality, Class A product that is safe for all uses including certified organic growing. Each year, the site generates 60,000 yards of finely screened, organic-approved compost.

ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL

St. Paul’s School, a private boarding school located in Concord, New Hampshire, has collaborated with Casella to help advance its recycling and sustainability goals, while recovering nearly 68 tons of recyclables and organic materials each year. One of St. Paul’s most innovative initiatives has been the deployment of Grind2Energy technology to recover the campus’ food waste for anaerobic digestion. The project installation and implementation marked St. Paul’s School the first organization in New Hampshire, and the first high school anywhere, to adopt the technology.

TOWN OF STRATHAM, NH

The Town of Stratham, New Hampshire, has been a valued Casella customer for the past nine years and is serviced by the Casella hauling division in Salem. With a population of around 7,500, the town currently recycles nearly 1,000 tons per year with an estimated recycling rate of 30 percent. To further advance their recycling efforts, in 2021 Stratham residents transitioned to automated collection services, improving overall efficiency, safety, and environmental impact. To support the project, the Town secured a grant from the Recycling Partnership for education and carts, which are constructed from 40 percent post-consumer recycled content.

TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Tufts University has made sustainability one of its campus-wide strategic priorities over the past few years, establishing itself as an innovative leader for higher education institutions. During this time, Casella has supported many of the campus’s resource management programs, including specialty recycling for film, foam, and textiles, move-out donation days, and the Tufts Eco-Rep Program in which over a dozen students support sustainability in the residence halls. During the 2019-20 academic year, the eco-reps collected 2,683 gallons of food waste for composting, in addition to the University’s impressively low contamination rate of seven percent.

2022 SUSTAINABILTY AWARDS FULL SHOW

The Casella Sustainability Leadership Awards represent a commitment to creating a better tomorrow and showcase the grit, drive, and determination that has led each award recipient down their own individual sustainability paths. These impressive recipients were hand-selected by a panel of Casella executives and sustainability experts out of dozens of qualifying customer nominations including municipalities, colleges and universities, industrial manufacturers, food and beverage producers, and more.

TOMPKINS COUNTY

PARTNER OF THE YEAR

Recognizes the Casella customer who is advancing resource sustainability by forging great partnerships and embodying the spirit of Casella’s core value commitment to teamwork.

UMASS LOWELL

INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR

Recognizes the Casella customer who is advancing resource sustainability by embracing innovative solutions.

BECTON DICKINSON

RECYCLING CHAMPION

Recognizes the Casella customer who has implemented an ambitious and successful recycling program.

DUPONT NUTRITION

ORGANICS RECOVERY CHAMPION

Recognizes the Casella customer who has implemented a successful recovery program for food, beverages, and other organic materials.

GOODWILL NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND

DONATIONS AND REUSE CHAMPION

Recognizes the Casella customer who has implemented a successful reuse or donation program.

READ CUSTOM SOILS

CLOSED LOOP ECONOMY CHAMPION

Recognizes the Casella customer who purchases or creates robust markets for recycled content materials, including recycled commodities, organics products, and more.

BENTLEY UNIVERSITY

EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR

Recognizes the Casella customers who implement educational campaigns to engage their communities, customers, employees, and/or students in good recycling and food waste programs.

TOWN OF FAIRFAX, VT

EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR

Recognizes the Casella customers who implement educational campaigns to engage their communities, customers, employees, and/or students in good recycling and food waste programs.