Innovative programs at Texas Instruments Inc. of Dallas and Colgate-Palmolive Co. of New York will be presented Summit Awards today by the University of Colorado at Boulder's Leeds School of Business.
The "Bright Smiles, Bright Futures" program at Colgate-Palmolive won the Summit Award for Social Impact, and Texas Instruments' fabrication plant in Richardson, Texas, won the Summit Award for Environmental Leadership. Both winners were one of three finalists for each award given by the Leeds School's Center for Business and Society.
New Belgium Brewery's water-efficiency program was honored with the inaugural Summit Student Award presented by CU-Boulder MBA students, who researched the nominations as part of a class. The program was honored for its practice of cleaning and reusing the Fort Collins-based brewery's wastewater for cleaning, evaporative cooling and landscaping. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, no other brewery in the United States incorporates as many water-efficiency measures. The student award recognizes the best program from both categories in the opinion of the students.
The Mt. Sustainability program at Interface Inc. of Atlanta and the water-efficiency program at New Belgium Brewery were recognized as finalists for the environmental leadership award. The C.A.F.E. Practices program at Starbucks Corp. of Seattle and a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, were recognized as finalists for the social impact award.
The awards will be presented during a ceremony beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the Center for British and Irish Studies on the fifth floor of CU-Boulder's Norlin Library. A reception will follow.
The Summit Awards recognize company programs that have a positive social or environmental impact while contributing to the company's financial performance, according to Robert Kolb, assistant dean for business and society at the Leeds School of Business.
"The strength of the nominations this year made for an especially challenging judging process, which is an indication of the quality both of the programs and of the MBA student researchers who investigated them," said Cindy Scheopner, program director of the Center for Business and Society and Summit Awards director.
Texas Instruments' new $3 billion microchip processing plant in Richardson was honored for leading the way toward a more environmentally friendly semiconductor industry. The microchip processing plant is under construction and when completed, its energy-efficient, "green" design will significantly reduce environmental impacts while slashing operating and capital costs.
Colgate-Palmolive's "Bright Smiles, Bright Futures" program was honored for teaching children across the globe about the importance of oral hygiene. Through educational kits distributed in schools, a touring dental van and community awareness efforts, the program has reached out to 46 million children in 80 countries over the past 14 years.
The three judges who evaluated entries for the Social Impact award were Jeanne Logsdon, the Jack and Donna Rust Professor of Business Ethics at the University of New Mexico; Linnea Simmons, an attorney with the law firm Caplan and Earnest of Boulder; and Mo Siegel, founder of Celestial Seasonings.
The three judges who evaluated the entries for the Environmental Leadership award were Jeff Yorzyk, senior analyst in the Boulder office of Five Winds International of West Chester, Pa.; Ben Hale, visiting professor in the CU-Boulder philosophy department; and Peter Kinder, president of KLD Research and Analytics Inc. of Boston.
The Summit Award Program gave its first award, the Summit Award for Social Impact, to General Mills Inc. for its "Box Tops for Education" program in 2003. In 2004 chemical manufacturer Rohm and Haas Co. of Philadelphia won the Summit Award for Environmental Leadership for its pollution prevention and green chemistry programs. This is the first year both awards have been given.
For more information about the award program or to view the project reports from the finalists visit .