Westchester’s green businesses honored

Seven companies and organizations in Westchester County will be honored for outstanding achievements in sustainable business practices at the Westchester Green Business Challenge”™s fourth annual recognition event Thursday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in White Plains.

Nearly 100 organizations participating in the WGBC and Westchester Green Business-Certified programs will be honored for their green business leadership at the event.

A private-public partnership between Westchester County and The Business Council of Westchester, the nonprofit Westchester Green Business Challenge was founded in 2009 to educate and inspire Westchester businesses to take steps toward environmental sustainability while improving performance and saving money. More than 275 businesses have joined the WGBC, which was expanded earlier this year to include a new certification program.

Reckson, a division of SL Green Realty Corp., will receive the organization”™s Charles W. Brown Jr. Sustainability Award for its work to create sustainable tenant space in the commercial office buildings it owns and manages in Westchester. The award was established two years ago in memory of the founder and owner of C.W. Brown Inc., an Armonk-based contracting firm whose headquarters building was the first in the county to receive LEED platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino and Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of the Business Council, announced the following winners of outstanding achievement awards:

  • Outreach & organizational commitment: Hendrick Hudson Free Library, Montrose.
  • Energy: Colonial Needle Co., White Plains.
  • Waste Management and green products: Diamond Properties, Mount Kisco.
  • Transportation: New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division, White Plains.
  • Land use: Friends of Hilltop Hanover Farm, Yorktown Heights.
  • Water resources: DoubleTree Tarrytown.

“It has been enormously satisfying to see this program expand in Westchester County and become a regional, statewide and even national model for others to follow,” Gordon said in a press release. “Employers from all industries are realizing that sustainability is an essential ingredient to their long-term success and ability to retain the most talented workforce.”

For more information about the WGBC and the June event, including sponsorship opportunities, visit westchestergreenbusinesschallenge.org or contact WGBC co-chairs Dani Glaser and Scott Fernqvist at westchestergbc@gmail.com.