The inaugural America East Sustainability Conference announces that Casella Waste Systems, Inc. has been named Presenting Sponsor of the 2022 conference, taking place June 7-9, 2022, at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Lowell. Athletics and sustainability staff from America East member institutions, along with student-athletes and experts from industry and community will share examples of partnerships, campus collaboration, sustainable best practices, projects that leverage resources and funding opportunities, and joint research/teaching projects focused on athletics and sustainability.
Casella provides sustainability services to several America East member institutions, most notably UMass-Lowell which earned a Casella Sustainability Leadership Award for innovation in 2021, and the University of Vermont which has participated in a number of research opportunities through funding provided by Casella that has helped the company make improvements to food waste recovery systems among other sustainability initiatives.
“Successful collaborations in higher education are essential to realizing our collective sustainability goals as a society. The future leaders in sustainability are living and learning on college and university campuses across the country, and most especially here in the Northeast,” said John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO of Casella. “I would like to thank the America East Conference and its member institutions for joining us in our ongoing, ever-evolving sustainability journey and for inviting us to collaborate on this exciting event. We look forward to continuing to advance these efforts within our industry while inspiring others to do the same throughout higher education and beyond.”
“We look forward to our partnership with Casella to gain a deeper understanding of what our campuses are doing collectively on zero waste and to build on action to create greener campus communities across the America East footprint,” said Marsha Florio, Executive Director of the America East Academic Consortium.
“We are delighted to partner with the America East conference, and our long-standing partner Casella to present this inaugural event at UMass Lowell. With the Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy, our goal is to create sustainability blueprints that can be replicated at scale to create a green future. Partnerships are critical to this approach. The America East network gives us the perfect vehicle to collaborate with our peer universities to leverage our collective strengths,” said Rist Institute for Sustainability & Energy Executive Director Ruairi O’Mahony.