Three St. Petersburg-based companies have earned prestigious environmental honors, as the inaugural St. Petersburg Sustainable Leadership Awards announced their winners in a ceremony last week. The awards were presented by the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership and the Environmental Defense Fund’s Florida headquarters, which are located in downtown St. Pete.

The two organizations play vital roles in St. Pete’s future, and they teamed up to recognize local business leaders and developers for their work in sustainability and climate resiliency. The awards served as an opportunity to showcase the positive work being done for our environment throughout Pinellas County.

Nominations were collected throughout the summer, and winners were ultimately selected in three categories. Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) won for the Institutional category, Brick Street Farms won the Retailer Award, and Stoneweg U.S., LLC won the Developer Award.

Full presentations for each can be seen below, but quick highlights from each showcase the different ways that local businesses – both big and small – can make significant environmental impact in a way that makes economic sense.

Local companies find ways to support sustainability

PSTA, which recently launched the long-awaited SunRunner, was credited with decreasing its energy use per rider by more than 30% since 2015. The local transportation service is in the process of creating one of the largest zero-emission bus fleets in Florida, along with plans to transition all of their bus-charging power to come from solar panels being installed on the roofs of its facilities.

Brick Street Farms, an incredible local company we’ve showcased here often, recently opened its new facility that uses hydroponic shipping containers to grow 48 acres of worth of traditional farmland crops inside just 12,000 square feet of land. Fun fact we learned: the shipping containers aren’t even connected to the sewer system because they create and use all of their own water.

And finally Stoneweg, which has also been credited with making an above-and-beyond effort to include affordable and workforce housing in its new development projects in St. Pete, earned accolades for the implementation of a wide-reaching recycling program across all of its properties. The company increased recycling services by 45% across the board, and expects to have programs implemented at 100% of their properties by the end of 2022.

Local leadership sees bright future for St. Pete sustainability efforts

Downtown Partnership President Jason Mathis and EDF Florida Director Dawn Shirrefs were both on hand to congratulate the winners, along with a keynote speech from Betsy Gardner Eckbert, President and CEO of the City of Winter Park’s Chamber of Commerce.

“We have a unique opportunity to become the most resilient city not just in Florida, but in this country,” Mathis told the audience.

Said Schirrefs, “We really want to look at the solutions that we can implement that actually matter and actually impact real lives right now.

“We have a chance to take this moment and figure out how to do that.”

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