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Media Contact: Collin Dunn
Sustainable Style Foundation
collin.dunn@sustainablestyle.org
206.324.4850
SSF Announces Recipients of the 2006 Outstanding Sustainable Style Achievement (OSSA) Awards
Seattle, WA – August 2, 2006 – Today the Sustainable Style Foundation (SSF) announced the recipients of its 3rd annual Outstanding Sustainable Style Achievement (OSSA) Awards. Award recipient and nominee profiles are currently showcased in the newly-released 2006 OSSA Awards edition of SSF’s on-line publication, SASS Magazine, available at www.sustainablestyle.org. Those chosen as award recipients will be presented with their awards by SSF Co-Founders and/or Style Ambassadors through out the balance of 2006.
The ten recipients of SSF’s OSSA Awards program, which honors leaders for their style achievements addressing social and environmental challenges facing our world, are listed along with the category of achievement:
Communications & Communication Design: Salon.com & Rolling Stone
Designed Environments - Volvo
Entertainment - MTV & "Trippin’"
Fashion & Beauty - Edun
Food & Restaurant - New Belgium Brewing Company
Industrial Design & Consumer Products - Whole Foods Market
Mobility - OZOcar
Sports - StopGlobalWarming.org, NativeEnergy, Philadelphia Eagles, St. Louis Rams
Travel - Hyatt Hotels
Nonprofit - National Environmental Trust, Breast Cancer Fund and Breast Cancer Action
SSF’s Premier Awards were also bestowed, including the Vision & Innovation Award, the Outstanding Public Expression Award, and SSF’s highest honor, the Style and Substance Award in honor of Audrey Hepburn. The Premier Awards serve to recognize leadership in recipients’ respective fields and to emphasize the individual’s long-standing commitment to socially responsible, positive actions benefiting our future. This year, SSF has chosen:
Angelina Jolie, recipient of the Style & Substance Award in honor of Audrey Hepburn
SSF's highest honor, this award recognizes outstanding efforts by a celebrity, style professional or public figure who is improving the quality of life for children around the world. The Award was originally inspired by the late Audrey Hepburn who was an actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador who worked to raise awareness of the plight of children around the world. The SSF Board of Directors has chosen to present the 2006 Style & Substance Award in honor of Audrey Hepburn to Angelina Jolie, a concerned global citizen and active Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a UN agency that currently assists 20 million refugees in approximately 120 countries. As a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina uses her status as a superstar to generate media coverage about the plight of refugees and the conditions under which they live. To further raise awareness, she has released her personal journals for select field visits that can be accessed at USA for UNHCR. Ruud Lubbers, the UN high commissioner for refugees, said: "She gives a voice to millions of uprooted people across the globe."
Prince Charles & Lady Camilla, recipients of the Outstanding Public Expression Award
This award recognizes efforts by a celebrity, style professional or public figure that uses their high profile position to bring attention to pressing social and/or environmental issues. The SSF Board of Directors is delighted to confer the 2006 Outstanding Public Expression Award to His Royal Highness, Charles, Prince of Wales, and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, for their high-profile visits to organic farms in California and their outspoken support of organic farming in 2005. About his commitment to sustainability, The Prince has been quoted as saying, "I have always believed that agriculture is not only the oldest, but also the most important of humanity's productive activities." The prince is a firm supporter of sustainable agriculture and runs an organic farm on his Highgrove estate in England. He also has a multimillion-dollar line of organic foods, Duchy Originals, whose profits go to charity.
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream, recipients of the Vision & Innovation Award
The Vision & Innovations Award recognizes an individual, organization or company that has demonstrated ongoing leadership and vision in a style/design industry. The SSF Board of Directors has selected Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream to receive this year's Award for their social and environmental leadership and vision to improve the quality of life for people around the world through their business practices. Since their inception in 1978, Ben & Jerry’s has married their passion for making great ice cream with changing the world for the better; their numerous social and environmental efforts and programs include using recycled and recyclable plastic and cardboard packaging, and coming out against recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) based on concern about its adverse economic impact on family farming in 1989. 2002 saw Ben & Jerry’s partner with the Dave Matthews Band and SaveOurEnvironment.org in a campaign to fight global warming, as well as begin an ongoing partnership with NativeEnergy to offset carbon emissions by investing in new wind farms.
About this year's awards program, Rebecca Luke, co-founder and senior stylist at Sustainable Style Foundation, said, "Our mission is to help inform style professionals and consumers of how they can make personal lifestyle choices that still help us all 'look fabulous, live well and do good'. The recipients of the OSSA Awards exemplify how each of us can serve as role models to build a better world tomorrow."
A selection committee of accomplished social and environmental leaders evaluated nominees based on the following criteria:
- effective use of popular culture,
- future innovation,
- depth of achievement, and
- overall impact.
This year’s panel of judges included a diverse crowd of sustainability enthusiasts, including Thor Peterson (City of Seattle Green Building Program), Dr. Leslie Burns (Oregon State University, Apparel, Interiors, Housing, and Merchandising College of Home Economics and Education), Lynne Barker (City of Seattle Green Building Program), Josie Briggs (interior design, Studio Celadon), Deborah Vandermar (chair of Fashion Group International), Dave Rider (sales and marketing, Copernican Design), and Shanle Vandermeer (student, University of California, Santa Cruz, community studies). Of her experience as an OSSA jury member, Shanle Vandermeer said, "I never knew that there was so much going on in the sustainability movement. SSF has really opened my eyes to the many different ways I can manage my life more sustainably."
About Sustainable Style Foundation
The Sustainable Style Foundation (SSF) is an international nonprofit organization that uses the combined power of popular culture and personal lifestyle choices to address the many pressing social and environmental challenges facing our world. "By combining our efforts across the many style and design industries to give people an understanding of how they can effect positive social and environmental change through simple personal lifestyle choices, such as the coffee they choose to drink or the clothes they choose to wear, we will ultimately create a more sustainable society," says Sean Schmidt, co-founder of SSF.
From fashion, food and film to interior design, architecture, travel, music and more, SSF has designs on making sustainability the most exciting and important style innovation of the 21st century.
www.sustainablestyle.org