Competition for the 22nd annual Environmental Respect Awards (ERA)
is underway with a new, earlier deadline. Retailers, land management
professionals and past winners will have until March 16 to submit an
Environmental Respect Award Self-Audit.
Participation in the awards program has more than doubled in the
last two years. In response, organizers made this year’s entry deadline
more than a month earlier than past years and revamped their
online entry process to make applying online easier. This year, applicants will be able to make an “
Environmental Pledge,”
examine their operations by using the Self-Audit Booklet and
immediately show their commitment with a participation certificate.
The Environmental Respect Awards are sponsored by DuPont Crop
Protection and CropLife magazine and considered to be the premier awards
in ag retail stewardship. The awards serve to recognize and promote
environmental stewardship from farm retailers who are operating their
businesses in an environmentally sound manner, to the benefit of their
customers, employees and community.
Since 1990, more than 5,000 U.S. retailers have entered the
Environmental Respect Awards and shared their stewardship initiatives.
More than 300 businesses have earned state awards in that time,
including two-time winner and NAAA member Tim Tyree of Tyree Ag Inc.,
Kinsley, Kan. Tyree Ag received a Kansas state Environmental Respect
Award in 2009 and was one of only five U.S. farm supply retail
businesses to receive a regional Environmental Respect Award in 2011. A
video spotlighting Tyree’s stewardship practices is available on the Environmental Respect Awards’
website. NAAA Member Darrel Mertens of Aero Applicators Inc. in Sterling, Colo., is also a past winner.
“Our right to operate as an industry depends on our ability to work
safely and effectively,” ERA Director K. Elliott Nowels said. “There
are good things happening out there. The Environmental Respect Awards is
about honoring those in our industry who are doing it right—and sharing
that good news with the rest of the world.”
To enter, you must be a crop input supplier or distributor, or
involved in vegetation management in one of the specified regions where
the Environmental Respect Awards effort is being conducted. Your
business must be a customer of DuPont Crop Protection in that area.
Recognition is given to all who enter and there are several intermediary
prizes. The national award is given to the business judged to be best
out of regional winners. For more information about the Environmental
Respect Awards, please visit
www.environmentalrespect.com.