Kelley school presents Green awards to companies, students

The Kelley School celebrated Earth Day by honoring three Indiana companies for their environmentally sound approaches to business at the second annual Kelley Green Awards Tuesday night. The ceremony was filled with exceptional ideas, fun and lots of laughs.\nAssociate dean of the Kelley School of Business John Hill presented the Green Awards to both the students who nominated the company and the company itself.\nWinners this year are: Bloomingfoods in Bloomington, nominated by Asima Biswas; One World Enterprises in Bloomington, nominated by senior Gabe Watson; and NiSource Inc. in Merrillville, Ind., nominated by Heather Haworth.\nEach student received a $200 grant along with their awards.\nAs George Huntington received the award on behalf of Bloomingfoods, he challenged all Kelley students in the room to keep their environmental concerns in mind as they move into the business world.\n"It does my part good to see the school of business generate awards like this," Huntington said. \nThe Environmental Policy Committee of the Kelley school narrowed the three winners down from 120 nominations submitted by Kelley students. \nJohn Maxwell, associate professor of business economics and public policy and master of ceremonies, said the Kelley Green Awards are special because they are distinguished from other business-environmental awards by being student-motivated.\nBefore the Kelley Green Awards, students presented "green ideas," or solutions to environmental problems. At the end of all eight presentations, the audience voted on the most creative, effective idea to promote awareness among environmental issues. Presenter Andrew Branoff said students did the projects for extra credit in their consumer psychology class.\nAmong the top three finalists was Wes Adkins, who addressed fuel efficiency problems within the IU mass transit system. Adkins suggested to burn purified corn oil as fuel, recycled from RPS dining halls.\nSenior Steve Cornwell introduced the "Kelley Enviro-vac" -- a truck that would collect and separate salt and sand from Bloomington streets to improve conventional street clean-up methods. \nThree business majors won the competition by a close vote with their "Don't Pollute" campaign designed to encourage IU students to reduce, reuse and recycle.\nThe plan, created by seniors Scott Gross, Armando Vera and Navin Jayaram, hypes students to recycle by rewarding them with half-price drinks at Nick's and half-price admission to sporting events.\nTheir presentation received many laughs as the three performed skits to demonstrate their ideas.\n"We didn't want to do an ordinary presentation," Vera said. "It feels awesome that our ideas can motivate students."\nVera noted that these are issues everyone must be concerned with because as students, they are the future. The three winners commended their presenters.\nSenior Ken Blidner, who helped decorate the room with cardboard tree cut-outs, said he attended the ceremony to support his friends who were presenting and to promote an activity he helped plan. Blidner also said many business students were given extra credit in their classes for attending the ceremony.