Each year the Virginia Green Travel Alliance recognizes individuals, businesses and organizations in their Virginia Green Travel Star & Leader Awards. These awards are presented annually to Virginia’s greenest tourism operators and partners for their outstanding commitments to sustainability and contributions to green tourism in Virginia.
VCC’s Jorden McLean was recognized with a 2025 Green Team All-Star Award for his work with VCC, the Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Energy, the Virginia Clean Energy Summit and mentoring of the JMU student sustainability leaders. Additionally, VCC received the “Supporting Partner of the Year” for our longtime partnership with the Virginia Green Travel Alliance. VCC presented about how the Charging Smart program can increase tourism and economic development.
The awards were presented in conjunction with the 12th Annual Virginia Green Travel Conference, held March 20-21, 2025, at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia. All of the awards were presented on March 20th during an awards celebration. Attendees were given a behind the scenes sustainability tour of Busch Gardens, which showcased the amusement park’s water reuse, recycling, alternative fuels, energy savings and other earth-friendly practices.
“The Virginia Green Travel Certification program works to support and recognize tourism businesses and organizations that are committed to reducing the environmental impacts of their operations,” says Tom Griffin, the Executive Director of the Virginia Green Travel Alliance. “Through the Travel Star Awards, we get to recognize the ‘greenest’ businesses and individuals that have demonstrated outstanding effort and achievements in the past year.”
The Virginia Green Travel program is run through a partnership between the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the Virginia Tourism Corporation, Virginia State Parks, the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association, and the Virginia Green Travel Alliance. The program encourages green practices in all sectors of Virginia’s tourism industry. More than 1,200 businesses and partner organizations have voluntarily certified their green commitments through the Virginia Green Travel program.