On Friday, October 6, the Alice Ferguson Foundation was recognized by the Prince George’s County Chamber of Commerce as the 2017 Green Business of the Year at its annual Excellence in Business Awards Gala. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in the county and pays tribute to organizations that have demonstrated measurable growth, community involvement, support and commitment to sustainability.
“We are honored to receive such a prestigious award. Since our founding more than 60 year ago, we’ve brought environmental education to life for more than half a million students around our region,” said Lori Arguelles, Alice Ferguson Foundation’s president and CEO. “In the last decade and as a testament to our founding principles, we have invested in upgrading and modernizing our campus to make it one of world’s greenest, most energy efficient building complexes in the world.”
The Foundation’s environmental campus includes the net-zero water, net-zero energy, and carbon neutral Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Environmental Center, a Living Building Challenge certified project that meets the world’s most stringent green building requirements. The Cafritz Environmental Center, which hosts thousands of students each year, is only the 13th project in the world to achieve full Living Building Challenge certification.
The Prince George’s Chamber of Commerce is an alliance of more than 900 businesses, representing over 300,000 employees, making it one of the largest chambers in the state of Maryland and the Washington Metropolitan region. Their annual gala honors businesses and organizations that go above and beyond with noteworthy contributions to their respective fields, and which help maximize the economic potential of the county as a whole.
The Alice Ferguson Foundation is a nonprofit located in Accokeek, Maryland. The Foundation’s educational programs unite students, educators, park rangers, communities, regional organizations, and government agencies throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area to promote the environmental sustainability of the Potomac River watershed.