Pernod gets Westchester Business Hall of Fame award

Pernod Ricard USA, the wines and spirits giant whose brands include Absolut Vodka, Jameson”™s Irish Whiskey and Chivas Regal, has won the corporate citizenship award from the Westchester County Business Hall of Fame.

The award will be presented April 19 at the Glen Island Harbor Club in New Rochelle.

Pernod”™s charitable contributions topped $1 million dollars in 2011. The company, based in Purchase, has taken steps to help the economy, promotes community service among its employees, collaborates with community organizations in Westchester, and has worked to help the environment.

Its economic initiatives include providing money and volunteers to The Business Council of Westchester to help businesses expand  to ArtsWestchester, which promotes the artistic life of the county and and to Food Bank for Westchester.

The company”™s general counsel, Tom Lalla, is on the boards of the Business Council and of ArtsWestchester.

Pernod has also increased the workforce at its headquarters, adding several dozen jobs to bring the total to 275. It offers employees an online e-learning program and tuition reimbursement program and prvices internships for Westchester”™s college students.

In recent years Pernod has developed an employee volunteer program. On semi-monthly “volunteer days,” employees lend their efforts to nonprofit companies. It has worked with the Volunteer Center of the United Way to clean up Rockefeller State Park in Yorktown, where there have been staff cuts in recent years.

Pernod has also turned its focus to feeding the hungry in Westchester, where  recent statistics have shown that one-fifth of its residents either go hungry or are short of food. The company”™s employees work with Food Bank for Westchester, packaging food for delivery to local pantries. Workers took part in a “Giveback” Olympics, packing one and a half tons of pasta for delivery to those in need in the county in one hour. Some of the company”™s Westchester employees worked with their New York City colleagues at “God”™s Love We Deliver,” a nonprofit agency that brings food to homebound persons who are terminally ill.

In other parts of the country, Pernod salespersons sorted food for the San Diego Food Bank and remodeled apartments with Habitat for Humanity in Hawaii.

Pernod also demonstrated its commitment to responsible drinking. It started a web site called “Accept Responsibility,” aimed at fighting underage drinking, drunk driving and binge drinking.

The company has also initiated several “green” programs, such as sponsoring the Westchester Green Business Challenge; using recycled paper and double-sided printing; putting recycling bins at each employee”™s desk; using coffee mugs and water bottles instead of paper cups and adding hybrid vehicles to its fleet and car rental programs. It also employs a green purchasing policy and promotes videoconferencing instead of air travel.