This recognises a need to shift to a low carbon and circular economy and to challenge a ‘take-make-dispose’ model. It seeks innovative businesses adopting a more circular solution to operate within sustainable, environmental means, adopting a circular model that achieves greater resource efficiency and reduces waste materials, water and carbon emissions.
This award will be presented to an organisation that is making measurable progress towards going circular and reducing the environmental impact of their business. It will demonstrate greater efficiency by sourcing diversified, eco-friendly materials.
The Circular Efficiency Award is new for CREST23, bringing together elements of the former Going Circular and Efficiency Awards, and demonstrates how the programme is itself an organic entity as it aims address the urgent need to combat climate change and recognise the achievements of businesses and organisations working to do so.
Previous Winners
The finalists in CREST22 Going Circular Award, sponsored by Mayer Brown Ltd, were:
- Bee Friends
- Nordic Wellness Drinks
- Puremess
The overall winner was: Nordic Wellness Drinks.
Pep Kelly, Nordic Wellness Co Founder and Director says:
“Winning the CREST22 Award means much more than we imagined and really acted as a reminder to us, of the importance of sustainability is to us and our customers.”
Nordic Wellness produces healthy probiotic drinks in its Surrey Hills fermentary. The buildings used for the fermentary are upcycled farm buildings, including two former stable buildings for production and two for cold storage.
All ingredients are natural and organic, using real berries, from local British farmers, based on an ancient and proven method of fermentation.
Bottling and labelling at the fermentary ensures the quality of the drinks and limits their impact on the environment.
Sending out online orders of glass bottled drinks, they depend on sturdy packaging but use completely compostable materials, including the boxes, insulation, dividers and even compostable tape. The drinks also need to be kept chilled, so they use frozen gel packs that are reusable.
All incoming cardboard to the fermentary is stripped of any plastic tape or staples and used for its onsite compost, used for the vegetables that the company grows for its drinks. The compost is seen as key to protecting and preserving the soil, which of course, Nordic Wellness does not use chemicals on.
Most importantly the product itself is based on fermented live bacteria, an organic example of going circular, and the company is keen to share information and educate its customers and retailers about the importance of live bacteria to gut health.
The finalists in the CREST22 Efficiency Champion Award, sponsored by Holdsway, were:
- One Thought Changes All
- Plant Passion
- The Lightbox
The overall winner was: PlantPassion
Claire Brown Director of PlantPassion says:
“Winning this award is wonderful for both my business and for British flowers because it shows that we are really an efficient sustainable business. So I’m thrilled.”
Claire Brown is Director and Founder of PlantPassion, a flower farming and floristry enterprise at East Clandon that supplies cut flowers.
She and her team grow seasonal, scented and sustainable flowers, aiming to bring seasonal and sustainable floristry to local customers and retailers with a main selling season from April to October.
It supplies customers who collect their flowers from the farm and local florists within a car journey of them who prefer to source locally grown flowers from PlantPassion’s wide range rather than those flown in from all round the world. In the last couple of years PlantPassion has also grown more plants for dried flowers for bouquets through the winter.
PlantPassion uses field produced compost, ensuring that it is recycling its plant matter into both soil conditioner and growing medium and make Nettle/Comfrey teas to feed the plants, to avoid the use of any chemical feeds, pesticides or herbicides.