Reliving a night to remember with Belu…
Those who went to last year’s ceremony may have noticed Belu bottles on the table… well, the idea of using an ethical water company for our event wasn’t the only plan. We’re very excited to be able to tell you that the beautiful 2018 awards will be hand-made using recycled Belu glass from those very bottles.
Belu are an ethical business and a pioneering social enterprise. Success is measured by the reduction of environmental impact, successful and sustainable trading, and the number of lives transformed in poor countries through access to safe water. Belu donates all profit to WaterAid, over £2.2 million to date.
They were recently presented with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development, for demonstrating continuous reductions in CO2 emissions, constantly seeking new ways to reduce their impact and creating net positive outcomes both environmentally and socially.
The idea for recycling the bottles came from Belu CEO, Karen Lynch who sums up their enthusiasm for the awards perfectly:
“At last year’s awards we got beyond excited at the idea that the Belu bottles used at the awards could become the awards for 2018! It’s so fitting that the Global Good Awards will be celebrated with truly recycled trophies!”
Our gorgeous glass trophies are made by hand by artist Siobhan Jones at The Forge in Worthing. With over 20 years experience in glass making, Siobhan uses a technique called ‘fused glass’, a relatively environmentally friendly way of fashioning the finished product. As Jones explains:
“Hot glass has to be kept hot for weeks and weeks. All the time you’re making something, you’re burning the glass. Fused glass is much less energy intensive: you hand cut and arrange the glass, then fire it for 12 hours. It then cools down on its own for 2 days.”
Not only that, but the way Siobhan employs the technique is efficient in itself:
“There is no waste, we never throw glass away. Every single bit gets recycled. People are surprised when they come on a course and work from buckets of broken glass. That’s how I work, I don’t work with big sheets of glass that cost £100s all the time!”
“I buy my glass in full sheets and use them until it’s hundreds and thousands and then I use it again so I recycle all of mine down from full sheets to nothing.”
This year’s recycling mission presents a bit of a challenge:
“The glass I usually use is special, for example, it’s tested for colour compatibility. But that doesn’t work for recycled glass. There are different elements, compounds and metals in it. I can only use one brand of recycled glass at once as it has different softening and annealing points.”
But Siobhan is optimistic that the mission is possible:
“We will come up with something amazing using these bottles. We sort of know how at this point, using a little bit of trial and error and 20 years experience!”
We have been promised a sneak peak of the trophies in the next month or so, but you’ll only be able to see the finished article at Global Good Awards 2018.
If you would like to be part of the Global Good Revolution and our unique awards programme, please contact our Commercial Director Richard Roe on 07776 206077 or email richard@GlobalGoodAwards.co.uk
