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Inspiring social enterprises: a finalist’s view of this year’s Global Good Awards
Fair for You is no stranger to the Global Good Awards – its Food Club partnership with Iceland Foods is a finalist again this year in the Financial Education and Inclusion category. But rather than write about their own entry, chief executive Simon Dukes decided to look across this year’s full shortlist instead.
In this guest blog, Simon shares which fellow finalists caught his eye – from kitchen reuse schemes to community fridges to a Native American-led renewable energy network – and why they matter to him personally, as someone building a fairer credit system himself.
I’m far from the first person to say this, but it’s easy to be worn down by the news right now.
As such, looking through the list of finalists for this year’s Global Good Awards has been genuinely uplifting. (And not just because the Iceland Food Club, our collaboration with Iceland Foods, is again on the list – although of course this does help and we’re delighted for the recognition.)
There are so many fantastic initiatives and organisations on the shortlists across the various categories, but here are just a few that caught my eye and struck a chord with what we do at Fair for You.
Used Kitchen Hub – nominated in Circular Economy category
Set up in 2015 (so was Fair for You, as it happens), Used Kitchen Hub gives pre-owned and ex-display kitchens a second life instead of sending them to landfill.
Having sold more than 1,700 kitchens, this has kept around 2,200 tonnes of materials from landfill and helped households save an estimated £40m. A great example of providing customers with essential items at a more affordable price, hand in hand with reducing waste.
Hubbub & Co-op’s The Community Fridge Network – nominated in Climate for Good
A brilliantly simple idea. Environmental charity Hubbub and retailer Co-op have redistributed more than 11,000 tonnes of surplus food in 2025 alone. This food goes into community fridges rather than going to waste.
Unlike food banks – which do a fantastic job, but aren’t available to all and may have stigma attached to them – these community fridges are open to all. That destigmatisation piece particularly resonates with what we’re doing at Fair for You, avoiding judgement and allowing dignity when people just need a bit of support.
There are several other nominees involved in reducing food waste across the shortlists, as it happens – The Global FoodBanking Network, Vietnamese student Nghia Luu (in Young Changemakers), and Fairman Knight and Sons UK Limited (FKS). Food waste is such an upsetting by-product of the system, so I’m pleased to see it feature heavily – I know my former colleagues at the Food Museum, where I was trustee for several years, will agree!
Foresters Financial UK – nominated in Financial Education and Inclusion
Everyone could do with some financial advice, but it often doesn’t feel accessible or affordable. Well done Foresters Financial for creating a regulated, simplified advice model that it suggests could support millions more adults if scaled, significantly improving financial inclusion.
It’s a different type of financial inclusion to the one we tackle. Although structurally speaking, it’s the same – when customers are seen as harder to serve, providers retreat, creating exclusion, even though it doesn’t actually take much to figure out a sustainable way to serve those audiences. After all, I often say that banks could put Fair for You out of business tomorrow if they wanted to understand our customers.
Of course if I put on a cynical hat, perhaps I shouldn’t overly sing the praises of a company nominated in the same category as Fair for You. But on second thoughts, that’s hardly in the spirit of this article. Well done also to the other Financial Education and Inclusion nominees, esquared, Deafax and deafPlus for improving inclusion for deaf customers in financial services through the Signing Banks UK project, plus NatWest Group for two nominations for financial skills schemes.
Y.O.U Underwear – nominated in Global Good Trailblazer of the Year
Y.O.U Underwear is an online retailer selling, you guessed it, underwear. For every pair they sell, they donate another, through a partnership with the charity Smalls for All, ensuring that people in the UK and across Africa have that simple dignity.
There’s a gender equality side to this – Y.O.U says that 10% of girls globally miss months of school every year due to not having underwear during their periods. It’s another important example of how a problem that on first inspection might not appear to have wide-reaching consequences may, in fact, trigger further hardship or inequality.
Patron Capital’s The Women in Safe Homes fund – nominated in Financial Game Changer of the Year
Working with Resonance Limited, Patron’s fund has created 122 homes for women experiencing or at risk of homelessness, domestic abuse and other complex challenges. Right now, 680 women and their children are housed in these homes, thanks to a fund backed by £29m from impact investors.
As I mention from time to time, Fair for You was created with the white, green and purple brand colours of the women’s suffrage movement, and empowering women remains at the heart of our organisation – to this day, most of our customers are female. So these two causes particularly resonated with us.
Huurav Energy – nominated in Financial Game Changer of the Year
I was delighted to spot this organisation on the list as a fellow community development financial institution (CDFI).
Huurav is a network of CDFIs, philanthropists and Native American-led banks, created last year in response to the US Government’s cancellation of federal funding for renewable energy projects. Together, this new collective supports sustainable energy for Tribal communities at risk due to energy poverty and climate change.
Good luck to everyone on the shortlist – we look forward to the ceremony in September. Having been a ‘One to Watch’ and ‘Bronze’ winner in previous years, we hope we can go one better…
2026 entries are NOW CLOSED. See our 2026 finalists here.
