Sustainability Leadership Awards

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 leaders were selected out of dozens of qualifying nominations including municipalities, colleges and universities, community organizations, industrial manufacturers, food and beverage producers, and more.
  • Sustainability Leadership Awards
Casella is pleased to announce that seven of its customers were recently honored for their leadership in sustainability at the second annual Casella Sustainability Leadership Awards Ceremony.

During the ceremony, Casella recognized Cabot/Agri-Mark, GlobalFoundries, Middlebury Natural Foods Co-Op, Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, St. Paul’s School, the town of Stratham, N.H., and Tufts University as customers who are standing out among their peers in their efforts to reach their sustainability goals.

“It gives us a great sense of pride to honor these seven customers for their innovative work in prioritizing sustainable practices today, tomorrow, and well into the future,” said John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO of Casella Waste Systems, Inc. “Their work inspires us every day and we hope that by shining the spotlight on them that others will be driven to improve the sustainability of their operations.”

Learn More About This Year's Winners

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 Recovery 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, N.H.
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 Sustainability 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.