The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy®, established under the leadership of dairy farmers, is now accepting nominations for the second year of the U.S. Dairy Sustainability Awards. The award program recognizes dairy farms, businesses and collaborative partnerships for their contributions to healthy people, healthy products and a healthy planet and showcases that sustainability makes good business sense.
Nominations are open through Nov. 15, 2012, to all segments of the U.S. dairy value chain — from farm to table — for the following categories:
Outstanding Dairy Farm Sustainability
Outstanding Dairy Processing & Manufacturing Sustainability
Outstanding Achievement in Renewable Energy
Outstanding Achievement in Energy Efficiency
An independent panel of judges will evaluate all nominations based on the program’s or project’s results as measured by triple-bottom-line success — economic, environmental and social. Judges also will assess: the potential for adoption of the practices by other dairy farms and businesses; demonstrated learning, innovation and improvement; and scalability.
The awards are part of the U.S. Dairy Sustainability Commitment, an industry-wide effort to measure and improve the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the dairy industry. Launched in 2008, the Sustainability Commitment has the support and participation of hundreds of organizations across the industry as well as others from academic, government and nongovernmental organizations.
This year’s gold-level sponsors include the Center for Advanced Energy Studies/Idaho National Laboratory, DeLaval, DVO Anaerobic Digesters, Elanco, MilkPEP, Pfizer Animal Health, and World Wildlife Fund. Silver-level sponsors include Dolphin WaterCare, quasar energy group, Syngenta and U.S. Dairy Export Council®.