Awards and recognition for Recycled Energy Development
RED’s work in energy recycling has been recognized with the following awards:
Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance
Tom Casten has won the annual Inspiring Efficiency leadership award from the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance. The award honors Tom’s long record of success as a businessman and advocate in the field of industrial energy efficiency. MEEA promotes energy efficiency in the Midwest as a means of achieving sustainable economic development and environmental preservation.
Platts Lifetime Achievement
RED Chairman Tom Casten received the prestigious Platts Lifetime Achievement Award for his work creating ultra-efficient energy systems in the U.S. “As the founder and president of several energy companies, Casten has succeeded since 1975 in simultaneously slashing power costs and greenhouse gas emissions, and as an author and the founder of numerous advocacy groups, he has precipitated policy changes that have advanced industrial energy recycling and efficiency,” Platts noted in announcing the Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed at the 2009 Platts Global Energy Awards. Platts, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, is the leading source for global energy and commodities information.
ACEEE Champion of Energy Efficiency
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has selected RED Chairman Tom Casten as a 2009 Champion of Energy Efficiency. The ACEEE recognized Tom Casten as “perhaps the most viable and effective advocate for clean distributed energy for the past three decades.” The ACEEE Board of Directors noted Casten’s “career-long leadership in the energy efficiency field, and innovation in promoting the recovery of wasted industrial energy.” Presented to outstanding leaders involved with the industrial sector, this award recognizes leadership and accomplishment in the energy efficiency field.
GoingGreen East 50 Award
AlwaysOn selected RED for its 2009 GoingGreen East 50 award, which honors innovative clean tech companies in the eastern half of the U.S. Award recipients were selected based on numerous factors. The most important was the disruptive potential of the company’s technology combined with its likely feasibility. Other criteria included the strength of the management team, the credibility of the investors, the clarity of the company’s mission, and the strength of its claim to belong to the clean tech revolution. The awards committee also gave preference to businesses that could be profitable in spite of the economic downturn. RED was chosen for the resource recovery category.
Aspen Institute’s Energy and Environment Award
The Aspen Institute’s Energy and Environment Awards are among the most prestigious in the field. They recognize those who are making a real contribution to innovation, implementation, and communication of energy and environmental solutions. In 2009, RED was a finalist in the corporate energy efficiency category, which recognized several criteria: evidence of a disruptive, game-changing innovation; tangible application potential or implementation results; economic or environmental leverage and net energy impact; project replication potential; scale potential; and independent evidence of accomplishments.
USCHPA’s CHP Champions
The U.S. Clean Heat and Power Association has identified Tom Casten, Sean Casten, and Dick Munson as “CHP Champions” in recognition of “their outstanding leadership toward greater national use of clean, efficient, and reliable combined heat and power.”
Chicago’s Emerging Leaders Program
Sean Casten has been named to the Emerging Leaders Program of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. This selective two-year program is for leaders under 40 that are equipping Chicago to thrive in the global era. Participants take seminars in key issue areas — global economics, energy, climate change, and foreign policy, among others — and work with Chicago Council staff to develop a report on a pressing global challenge affecting Chicago and the Midwest. The program is sponsored by the McCormick Foundation.
Sean’s fellow participants in the program include Illinois State Representative Will Burns, President of the Chicago Transit Authority Richard Rodriguez, and numerous other leaders in fields ranging from business to architecture to the arts.