For 16 years now, we’ve named a Green Plant of the Year in the final few months of the year. This year’s winner is Perdue Farms’ Lewiston, N.C., poultry processing facility.

Does anybody care?

Some people do, and we all certainly should.

I’m writing this in my home office in suburban Chicago, hoping the power stays on. A month ago, a tornado touched down in my medium-sized suburb, a few blocks away from my home, a first for our town. Illinois this summer won the dubious distinction of having the most tornadoes of any state in the U.S. – take that, Oklahoma and Texas! – with more than 200. That’s nothing to be proud of.

My electricity went out for only a few hours. Just 40 miles east of me, people in northwest Indiana went without power for more than two weeks.

My house has endured at least three downpours that flooded my street and brought water right up to my garage door. Other Chicago suburbs had it worse.

We haven’t been back to our favorite vacation spot – Ft. Myers Beach, Fla. – because it was essentially wiped out by hurricanes in 2017 AND 2022 AND 2024 (I think it’s largely rebuilt now).

By the time you read this, a few weeks will have passed since the disaster at the Nepal-Tibet border. What caused the sudden flood that killed more than 1,000? It wasn’t a rainstorm; a glacier melted. Glaciers aren’t supposed to melt.

I’m writing this just days after a sudden rainstorm caused flash flooding in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, leaving at least two dead.

Have you read about forecasts for a Super El Nino?

How can anyone still deny climate change? After experiencing three 100-year rains in about two weeks plus a tornado, I’m convinced something is very wrong with the climate. We’ve been polluting Mother Nature for eons now, and I suspect it’s reached a tipping point.

While the current administration in Washington has rolled back a number of programs and policies meant to fight climate change – with the underlying premise that climate change is a myth – we are happy to see so many food & beverage processors continuing efforts toward sustainability.

Perdue’s Lewiston factory is a great example, capturing methane from its wastewater lagoons and converting it to natural gas for reuse, reducing water use and wastewater creation, and accomplishing near-zero waste to landfill. Kudos also to the other competitors in our Green Plant of the Year poll: Ajinomoto Foods North America’s Portland, Ore., plant and Gills Onions’ Oxnard, Calif., facility.

As I said, we’ve been doing this project for a while, so we have 16 years of great examples of sustainability efforts in the food & beverage industry.

Environmentalism still matters to consumers, too. Multiple large-scale studies show shoppers care about sustainability, with 79-83% expressing concern and sustainable products growing faster than conventional ones – and that’s in both U.S. and global markets. Studies and surveys from Bain & Company, Euromonitor, Deloitte, Vanderbilt University and others consistently show consumers have strong environmental concerns, are willing to pay more for sustainable goods and have expectations that companies and brands commit to sustainability.

So keep up the good work … or get on the bandwagon. The Earth needs healing. And I don’t need another flooded garage.