Sustainability to the fore! Sponsors get behind GGA 2021

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Sustainability to the fore! Sponsors get behind GGA 2021

Proving that even a pandemic cannot push sustainability off the agenda, organisations from a wide range of industries are throwing their weight behind the seventh edition of the Global Good Awards.

Headline sponsor and one of the UK’s leading contract catering companies, CH&CO, is joined this year by optical giant Canon (sponsoring the Young Champion award for the second year running), sustainability certification body Planet Mark, Thames tunnel construction company Tideway, planet-friendly web operation Erjjio Studios and film production unit Prospect Arts.

Emma Hill, group head of food, health, safety and environment at CH&CO, believes that Covid-19 has propelled sustainability best practice to the forefront of people’s minds. “More than ever, sustainability should be on businesses’ radars to drive growth for the future,” she said. “Now is not the time to get complacent. CH&CO is delighted to partner with the Global Good Awards again for 2021.”

This year the awards boasts two new categories: Waste Reduction and Minimalisation, which will reward organisations that have shown innovation and creativity in reducing and minimising waste across all key aspects of their activities (notably materials, water, food and energy) and Covid-19 Crisis Champions, an award which will recognise and celebrate organisations which have gone the extra mile in responding to the impact of the pandemic – whether on a local, national or global level. Entry to this category will be free of charge to all public sector healthcare services (and international equivalents) and any organisation entering another category. Organisations wishing to enter this category only, can still do so at the standard entry rate.

Adam Pensotti, the Canon Young People Programme lead at GGA sponsor Canon EMEA, deems the Canon Young Champion category even more vital this year. “2021 brings more challenges for all of us and, with our lives not returning to normal anytime soon, it is even more important to bring hope, inspiration and a positive attitude to the yea,” he said. “Personally, the Global Good Awards are a highlight, full of that optimism and belief that together we will make the future a better place. Learning from 2020 and all the great Canon Young Champion of the Year entries I saw, I would love to see and hear more ideas from more countries, from more young challengers with even more powerful voices calling for change. If I am looking for one aspect, one element that needs to stand out, it is the strength of individual conviction combined with the hard work and personal ability to make the idea a reality. That idea needs to show the spark of creativity that will drive change to our futures, demonstrating to all of us that together, we can, and will, make a difference.”

Winner of the Company of the Year 2020 award, Tideway, is also this year’s sponsor of the category. John Sage, Tideway’s corporate responsibility manager, said: “We were proud to win Company of the Year 2020 and we are also delighted to sponsor the category in 2021. The Global Good Awards is recognised for its independent, robust assessment of how organisations are supporting ‘people and planet’ and we look forward to celebrating the work of other companies raising the bar for environmental and social sustainability in 2021.”

Other categories include Global Good SME of the Year, Individual Leader of the Year (sponsored by Prospect Arts), Community Partnership of the Year, Educational Excellence, Employee Engagement & Wellbeing, Best Environmental Behaviour Change, Climate Action: Journey to Net Zero category (sponsored by the recently rebranded Planet Mark) and Technology for Good (sponsored by Erjjio). The full list of categories is available here.

Plans are already afoot for a virtual awards ceremony following the success of last year’s where contenders logged in from around the world to see who had won. You can see a winning reaction all the way from South Africa here. Dr James Robey, global head of environmental sustainability at Capgemini, commented on the 2020 event saying: “The ceremony was delivered virtually in an engaging way during challenging times. We will be entering these awards again, as they are stand out in their clear aspiration to drive positive change.”

Karen Sutton, Global Good Awards’ founder, is promising a similarly stand-out online event for 2021. “Given our 2020 success and how well received it was, we’re really looking forward to delivering a fantastic virtual experience again,” she said. “We really can boost our global reach with an online event and look to continue to minimise our attendees’ carbon footprints – as well as costs – by keeping some of these elements when we venture into a hybrid event in 2022.”

The Global Good Awards launched in 2015 (originally as the National CSR Awards.) It rebranded in 2018 and has seen entry growth by around 25% year-on year ever since. It is the recipient of the first ever GOLD standard ‘Awards Trust Mark’, which recognises the awards’ ethical, transparent and robust processes and is still the only scheme to retain this prestigious mark in the responsible business space.

Entries are now open and close at the end of April.