Former Gov. Granhom will receive Michigan’s top environmental award

She’ll be given the Milliken Distinguished Service Award Aug. 14 in Ann Arbor

Former Gov. Jennifer Granholm has spent her career in service of air, our water, and the places we love. This summer, she will receive Michigan’s highest environmental honor for this pursuit.

Granholm will receive the Helen and William Milliken Distinguished Service Award for her outstanding leadership, enduring commitment and extraordinary public service in protecting the environment at the local, state and national levels. The Michigan Environmental Council established the award in 2000 in honor of its namesake governor and first lady, who were also its first recipients.

The award ceremony will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at The University of Michigan’s Rogel Ballroom on Thursday, Aug. 14.

Join the celebration

“I wanted to serve,” Granholm said of her time in various leadership positions across Michigan and the United States. “I wanted to help others get elected. I wanted to do something because we’re put on this planet to serve something more than ourselves.”

To Conan Smith, president and CEO of the Environmental Council, Granholm carries on the spirit of the Milliken Award’s namesakes.

“Throughout her career, Jennifer Granholm faced especially tough special interests and economic circumstances,” Smith said. “With grace, aplomb and a collaborative spirit, she moved a state and, later, a nation forward. Today we enjoy the rich legacy of her work.”

As Governor of Michigan, Granholm faced a national recession particularly detrimental to her state’s manufacturing. So, she melded environmental and economic interests together, investing in energy efficiency and battery storage while requiring 15% of the state’s energy be derived from renewable sources.

Facing divided governments in the Michigan Legislature and beyond, she brought leaders together to protect the Great Lakes, most notably through the binational Great Lakes Compact.

Then, a decade later as the Secretary of Energy for the United States, Granholm helped shape and see through hundreds of billions of dollars in clean and efficient energy investments, the largest in the nation’s history. She then ensured the investments properly served communities most hit by pollution and its impacts through the Department of Energy’s Justice40 initiative.

“The citizenry wanted a stable, greener future,” Smith of the Environmental Council said. “Special interests wanted progress to move slowly, if at all. Granholm sensed these interests, brought people together and then forged solutions that were urgent, unique and unusually effective.”