The awards will be presented on Friday 30th January at the Banqueting Suite at the Civic Hall, in Leeds, with the evening itinerary including after dinner speaker, Mr Paul Hudson, TV weatherman from BBC Look North and also by First Direct, who are the headline sponsors of the awards.

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Crossgates entered the 'Recycling Project of the Year' category, and hopes to wow the judges with its Green Awareness Campaign, which they held on special 'Go Green' days, where fun activities were organised for the younger recycler and a fantastic £1,000 shopping prize was awarded to one lucky winner in the 'Message in a (PLASTIC) bottle' competition.

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Crossgates is a community retail Centre which focuses on the importance of sustainability and responsibility towards the environment. The Centre felt that the retailers, shoppers and the community would benefit from education on recycling and waste management.

With this in mind, the 'Go Green' day was organised in partnership with Leeds Paper Recycling, to promote the Centre's new recycling facilities.

The main objective was to educate shoppers, Tenants and the wider community about the importance of recycling and waste management. The project included several wheelie bins, which were provided in the Centre to encourage shoppers to use instead of the normal rubbish bins.

From the success of the campaign, Crossgates went on to replace
existing and obsolete recycling facilities with more efficient and user-friendly machines for the whole Centre.

Since the recycling review, the Centre has reduced its general waste skip collections by over 50% which has radically reduced rubbish going to landfill and increase its previous recycling levels including new waste streams which has also reduced its the carbon footprint through less frequent waste collections.

Crossgates also actively sought to work with local businesses and established a partnership with Leeds City Council, and other multi-agency awareness groups, to promote the importance of recycling and the ultimate benefits both to the organisations as well as, more importantly, the positive effect on the environment.

The Centre has also extended this recycling initiative to include its Tenants in Arndale House, where they are also benefitting from the reduced landfill and increased recycling facilities at the Centre.

The services include; bottle banks, clothing recycling, paper bank, shoes recycling, Mobile phone recycling, battery disposal for Tenants and many more.

Crossgates hopes to win the 'Recycling Project of the Year' category with this comprehensive recycling facilities and educational approach to improved and sustainable services. The Centre feels that it is a responsible retail development in Leeds with a strong focus on the sustainability of the local community.

Steven Seymour, Crossgates Shopping Centre Manager, told Cross Gates Today: "The various events that we ran in 2008 were really well supported by customers, visitors, tenants and the numerous support agencies involved including Leeds Paper Recycling, Leeds City Council and the Environment Agency to name but some who attended and gave much appreciated advice and support.

"The events raised levels of awareness and knowledge and also encouraged participation not just on the day of the events but sustained commitment and support. Our aims were to improve and encourage recycling and reduce waste wherever possible and also to reduce energy and water usage both from the Centre and residents.

"This is part of an ongoing and continued package to ensure that we wherever possible we reduce waste, energy usage, water consumption and improve services to our Tenants and community which is the heart of Cross Gates and essential to our success.

"The fact that we have been short listed along with other community groups and businesses shows that Leeds is a forward thinking and committed City. If we all do our bit we can make a difference to improve how we all manage waste, energy and services to contribute to improving not only Leeds but the planet."