The Illinois Environmental Council will honor a powerful trio of people and programs that have furthered the cause of protecting the health of the state’s natural resources and its citizens at the organization’s 2008 Environmental Leadership Dinner Thursday, Sep. 25.

IEC will present Environmental Leadership Awards to the Chicago Recycling Coalition for its successful advocacy for a better recycling program in the City of Chicago and restauranteurs Ina Pinkney and Dan Rosenthal for creating the Chicago Green Restaurant Co-op, which procures sustainable products for local restaurants and other businesses. A posthumous award will go to Strachan Donnelley, the conservationist and philanthropist who founded the Center for Humans and Nature.

After 18 years of relentless advocacy and public education, the Chicago Recycling Coalition (CRC) finally won its battle this year to end the flawed Blue Bag recycling system and replace it by 2011 with a citywide source-separated Blue Cart recycling program. Based on thorough research and analysis, CRC opposed the Blue Bag when the City of Chicago first announced its in 1990. When the Blue Bag program was implemented in 1995, CRC monitored and analyzed recycling levels, regularly publicized the poor program results and advocated for separate recycling collection.

Dan Rosenthal, owner of the Sopraffina Marketcaffés, partnered with Ina Pinkney, owner of Ina’s, for help in finding like-minded colleagues to create a buying co-op for eco-friendly products and established the Green Chicago Restaurant Co-op a year ago. Since its inception, the Co-op has grown to include nearly 100 restaurants, with a membership list of 150, representing restaurants, institutional feeders, schools, museums/zoos, and several hotels.

The Co-op represents a group of passionate environmentalists, headed by a steering committee of restaurateurs, members of environmental organizations, such as the Chicago Department of Environment and the Delta Institute, working to ensure the city’s infrastructure is ready to support restaurants’ environmentally friendly practices. Its current mission is to establish a successful recycling and commercial composting program for all 6,000 restaurants in Chicago.

Strachan Donnelley, who passed away in July, contributed generously to many conservation projects over the course of his lifetime, both as president of the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation and as founder of the Center for Humans and Nature. His contributions to Illinois’ environmental causes went beyond financial, according to Joyce O’Keefe, policy director at Openlands.

The 2008 Environmental Leadership Dinner takes place Thursday, Sept. 25, at the Hotel InterContinental Chicago, 505 N. Michigan Ave. A reception begins at 5:30 p.m. followed by the dinner and program at 7 p.m. Tickets are $150 per person; $25 for students. Table sponsors are $1,500 and Corporate, $2,500.

Ginger Zee, WMAQ-TV’s “Going Green” environmental reporter, will emcee the dinner, and Cathy Zoi, the chief executive officer for the Alliance for Climate Protection, will give the keynote address. Zoi joined the Alliance, the non-profit, non-partisan effort to halt global warming founded by former Vice President Al Gore, in February 2007.

Zoi has spent more than two decades in the energy and environmental sector in the United States and Australia and has led private sector and government organizations in developing technologies and programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including the pioneering Energy Star program and the first nationwide Green Power program. She was chief of staff for environmental policy in the Clinton White House. She was awarded a Centenary Medal by the Australian Government for her contributions to sustainability in 2003 and was profiled in the March 2006 issue of Rolling Stone magazine as a global warming “Warrior and Hero.”

For more information or to purchase tickets for IEC’s annual dinner, visit www.ilenviro.org or call 217-544-5954.