DENVER -  WhiteWave Foods Co. and Eco-Cycle top the list of area companies that will receive CleanTech Sustainable Business Awards presented by the Colorado CleanTech Initiative at the outset of the 2008 Sustainable Opportunities Summit in Denver.

Broomfield-based WhiteWave and Eco-Cycle in Boulder will receive gold awards. Silver award winners are Boulder Valley Credit Union in Boulder and Redirect Guide in Denver. Longmont-based Arius LLC will receive a bronze award.

The awards presentation will take place at 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 26, at the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, and award winners will be introduced at a reception at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 27, as part of the kickoff of Sustainable Opportunities Summit that will be held Feb. 27-29 at the Four Points by Sheraton Denver Southeast.

WhiteWave, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dean Foods Co. (NYSE:DF), manufactures food and beverage products using socially and environmentally responsible practices. The company purchases renewable energy credits and uses clean wind power at its corporate headquarters. It also has prevented the use of an estimated 17 million pounds of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers last years by incorporating organic processes.

Eco-Cycle's Zero Waste Program collects the discards generated by businesses - recyclables, compos tables and other trash - for a fee.

Boulder Valley Credit Union has adopted several "green programs" including installation of solar panels at its main branch, recycling programs at all four of its branches and composting programs at two branch locations through a partnership with Eco-Cycle.

ReDirect Guide is a media company that publishes a phone directory of businesses that serve the environmental community. ReDirect has three regional offices in  Portland, Salt Lake City and Denver. Its Denver office serves Fort Collins, Boulder and Denver ans surrounding areas.

Airius makes an energy-saving ceiling fan, the Airius Thermal Equalizer. The fan pulls hot air off the ceiling and directs it to the floor. It equalizes room temperature from floor to ceiling within three degrees. It has models suited for buildings with ceilings ranging from seven feet to 100 feet in height. The end result can be a savings of up to 40 percent of energy use and cost.

BOULDER - Andrew Hyde and Matt Emmi, two Boulder-based entrepreneurs, have launched a new T-shirt company called Venture Capital Wear.

The company sells $100 T-shirts with slogans geared toward venture capitalists.

All retail is done via Venture Capital Wear's Web site, www.vcwear.com. Slogans include: "Sure, I'll fund you. What's your sign," "Hedge Fund Managers are Big Meanies," and "My Ham Sandwich Has a Better Shot at Market Share."

That company prints and produces the T-shirts through Eurotrashapparel.com, a Boulder-based T-shirt printing company. It already has sold eight $100 T-shirts to venture capitalists.

Hyde and Emmi came up with the idea at a StartupWeekend in Indiana. StartupWeekend is a concept, created by Hyde, where a group of entrepreneurs get together and start a company in a weekend. Hyde and Emmi took the idea a step further and had a "Startup Plane Ride," according to Emmi, where the two entrepreneurs came up with the T-shirt company idea on the plane ride from Indiana to Denver.

"We started joking around, and we launched the company and came up with the T-shirt designs all during the two-hour plane ride," Emmi said. "We did it, and we just launched it because it's funny, but now a lot of people want the shirts."

The $100 per shirt price is because of "VC pricing," according to Emmi. The company itself is for sale and can be purchased for $100,000 on the Web site.

"We figured they are going to spend $100 or $500, it doesn't matter to them." Emmi said.

The company is offering "friends" in the entrepreneurial community a 75 percent discount on the shirts.

LOUISVILLE - The owners of a cleaning service company have purchased a 15,010-square-foot building in the Colorado Technology Center in Louisville.

Harry and Sylvie Price with ServiceMaster of Boulder County purchased the building at 270 S. Taylor Ave. for $1.21 million, according to Boulder County public records. The sellers were Jerry and Ann Raisch.

ServiceMaster of Boulder County plans to occupy about 9,400 square feet of space in the building and lease the remainder of the space to two existing tenants, said Audrey Berne with The Colorado Group, who helped broker the deal with Mathias Thurmer and Michael Ruiz of Coldwell Banker Commercial NRT.

ServiceMaster provides emergency water/fire restoration services and carpet, upholstery, rug/floor and air duct cleaning to homes and businesses throughout Boulder County.

It currently is located at 1630 N. 63rd St. in Boulder and plans to move.

LONGMONT - Paula Etrick has been hired as executive director of the Old Firehouse Art Center in Longmont.

Etrick moved to Longmont five years ago from Dodge City, Kan., where she and her late husband created the Pami Art Gallery. The art gallery promoted local and visiting artists, sponsored children's art shows and instruction and organized art lessons and workshops in drawing, painting, sculpture, woodcuts and pottery.

The Old Firehouse Art Center was renovated in 1999 to create a permanent art gallery space for the city of Longmont. The Arts Studio Inc. in Longmont and the Longmont Council for the Arts collaborated on the renovation of the old firehouse, a historic landmark in the downtown area.

SUPERIOR -  Key Equipment Finance is contracting with International Business Products Inc. to provide flexible financing for the company's 239 members.

Key Equipment Finance in Superior is the nation's third-largest bank-held equipment leasing company and an affiliate of KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY). International Business Products based in Scottsdale, Ariz. is the largest buying group in the commercial copier industry.

The deal enables members of International Business Products, who are independent copier dealers, to provide flexible financing to end-user customers interested in acquiring Canon, Minolta, Ricoh, Panasonic, Konica, Sharp, Kyocera and Toshiba copiers, digital duplicators, printers and other business machines. 

Flatirons Habitat for Humanity hosts An Evening with Habitat from 6:15 to 11:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 22, at Boulder's Dinner Theatre, 5501 Arapahoe Ave. in Boulder. The theater presents "Little Shop of Horrors," and a portion of the sale of each ticket goes to Habitat for Humanity. Cost: $75, of which $33 is tax-deductible. Contact: www.flatironshabitat.org.

The University of Colorado Law School, Leeds School of Business, Silicon Flatirons Center and Deming Center for Entrepreneurship host Private Equity, Sovereign Wealth Funds and Today's Capital Market at 3 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 22, at Wittemyer Courtroom, Wolf Law Building, University of Colorado at Boulder campus. David Bonderman, founding partner at Texas Pacific Group, will speak. Cost: Free and open to the public. Contact: sf@colorado.edu.