I'd like to thank the Academy...

[I'm posting this on behalf of Darby Hoover, NRDC's "greening big events" specialist, who couldn't be with us tonight due to her problems getting a visa -- Kate]

I'd like to thank the Academy, and my colleagues at NRDC, and everyone else who participated in this historic endeavor, the inaugural greening initiative of the 50th Annual GRAMMY Awards. For an event so large and influential, even small steps along the greener path make a huge difference in reducing environmental impacts - and some of the steps the GRAMMYs took this year were even bigger than we had anticipated. We couldn't have done this without Megan and David and Neil and everyone else at the Recording Academy who worked tirelessly on this initiative, as did Thea and her colleagues at Cossette Productions, and Jennifer and Sam and the other great people at the STAPLES Center. 

A very special thanks goes to Thomas and the other folks at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for making sure the telecast and afterparty were powered by renewable energy. Thanks to Jessica for heading the team of volunteers who posted recycling bins all over the STAPLES Center, and Allen for his incredible vision and passion, and Petra and Lisa and everyone else at NRDC who helped pull this together. Thanks to - wait, don't start the music yet - all the staff and vendors and everyone involved in this production who worked to make their piece of the event a little greener, from the flex-fuel and hybrid cars to the organic food to the recycled content toilet paper.

I know it's time for me to stop, but I don't want to leave anyone out because this kind of giant undertaking is really a sum of all the small steps taken by a lot of different people working individually - and laying groundwork to build on in the future. So please read more about the first-ever Green the GRAMMYs initiative and thank you for listening.