NQE Business Awards 2013
We are excited to announce that we are judging one of the categories for the Colchester Business Awards 2013: this year is the Environmental Awareness one.
We have joined forces with Zero Above and Essex County Council (ECC) and together have interviewed a total of nine finalists. For me, it was a great pleasure to meet all the candidates and I am sure my colleagues felt the same- it is just amazing to see the effort and dedication put in by everyone.
It is even more impressive what has been achieved considering the nature of the category we are judging- environmental awareness can sometimes come second place in the face of other factors. So I think our finalists set a great example that everyone should stop for a second and have a look at.
If it was for me, I would have given everyone an award! But it is a competition and so we had to make a decision in the end. It probably all sounds very cryptic as the winners will be announced on the evening of the awards- 29th November at the Charter Hall. Until then, we’ll keep the secret! I promise to come back and write an update after the event though for those of you who are curious to know more…
New faces and the NQE Business Awards
First I would like to introduce Claudia and David who have recently joined the Colchester Travel Plan Club as interns and Gareth who has joined Essex County Council’s Sustainable Business Travel Plan team.
Sadly it is goodbye to Rachelle who is moving on to change management within ECC. Claudia, David and Gareth look forward to working with you.
Back to the NQE awards and a huge thanks to all of our finalists, we hope you all had a good time on Friday. The quality of the projects described was fantastic and it was almost impossible to pick just two winners. After a huge amount of deliberation, congratulations go to Defence Support Group and The Gilberd who won the award.
To celebrate all our finalists’ achievements, below is a brief synopsis of each as well as a write up on the winners.
The Finalists
University of Essex – The partnership with Re-Cycle the charity that sends refurbished bikes to Africa is a fantastic way to re-cycle bikes abandoned by students and in a virtuous circle then sell refurbished bikes back to cash strapped students. The Uni’s efforts to get students on bikes includes a weekly free Dr Bike service, cycle training and heavily subsidised bike security tagging
6th Form College – In a joint peer to peer project with Sustrans, students have produced a range of innovative posters to encourage fellow students to get on a bike. These have been featured in Cyclelife and may get rolled out beyond the 6th form college. Alongside this project the college has introduced a new comprehensive, friendly and attractive travel section on their intranet.
Inntel – As a business operating from a remote location, we were very impressed with Inntel’s commitment to their travel plan, the range of incentives and facilities they have for their staff and their forward thinking green credit scheme, where achievements of credits for example for using green transport are exchanged for vouchers at the end of the year.
CoHoc – Using Bike Week as a means of fundraising while at the same time encouraging people to cycle, was a different approach for getting people back on a bike. CoHoC offered a great range of cycling initiatives including Dr Bike, guided rides, refresher session all contributing to a successful bike week at the hospital.
The Winners
Defence Support Group – Colchester – The level of commitment shown to promoting sustainable travel and particularly cycling was very impressive. Having voluntarily started a travel plan, with no dedicated resources or funding, staff have really embraced cycling as a means for unifying, improving health and building moral amongst staff.
Staff from HR, the shop floor, H&S and management all spoke passionately about how cycling was impacting positively on their organisation.
Pool bikes are used by senior management as well as staff from the shop floor for business and personal trips and lunch time rides with colleagues. A group always take part in theLondontoBrightoncharity bike ride. Covered parking, showers, lockers and drying facilities provide support for cyclists. As a result of their commitment, cycling to work has risen from 7% to an impressive 16% since 2010.
The Gilberd – Cycling has been integrating throughout the school curriculum through the passion and hard work of key staff. Staff have been trained to deliver Bikeability training, mountain and track biking, allowing pupils the opportunity to develop specialist as well as general cycling skills. This means that every single child receives a solid experience on which to continue cycling as they get older. Following the Olympics, another cycling sport has been introduced, pursuit cycling. Their commitment to encouraging cycling stretches beyond the school. Staff work with primary schools in the local area offering cycle training and their cycling workshop, run by staff and students, offers a repair service to the school and wider community.
All will be revealed tonight!
It is the Newsquest business awards tonight, and again this year we have sponsored the Active and Sustainable Travel category along with Essex County Council’s Sustainable Business Travel Plan team.
We have six fantastic finalists who we asked to tell us about the project they are most proud of that has either:
- Reduced the costs and emissions of business travel; or
- Encouraged staff to be more active; or
- Contributed to reducing the carbon emissions generated from the journey to work; or
- Encouraged the local community to be more active or reduce their carbon emissions
Our finalists are:
- Colchester sixth form college
- The Gilberd
- Colchester Hospitals Charity
- Inntel
- University of Essex
- Defence Support Group
Our two winners will be revealed this evening. It has been wonderful talking to everyone and seeing their enthusiasm and passion for their projects. It has been an incredibly difficult task to decide on just two winners and we want all our finalists to know that we were very impressed with all of the projects and work described to us.
We will blog about our winners next week, but as we were so impressed with all the projects described to us, we will give you an overview of all of our finalists as well!
Emily
Business Awards – Our Winners!
Glamour, glitter and fireworks were all part of the excitement of the NQE Business Awards Ceremony on Friday 25th November. After a champagne reception, meal and speeches the award presentations got underway.
Rachelle Ruston from ECC, Simon New from Inntel and Emily Harrup from the Travel Plan Club went on stage to present our three winners, who were…..
Defence Support Group, Colchester Borough Council and Colchester Football Stadium.
Congratulations in winning the award and look out for our write up on what most impressed the judges about our winners, in the Essex County Standard on Friday 2nd December.
Well done also to all of our finalists. We know you will be disappointed that you didn’t win. However we would like you to know that your good work made our job of choosing three winners very difficult, and making it to the final nine is also a great achievement.
The Colchester Business Awards are a great way to raise the profile of sustainable travel within the business community as well as reward organisations that are already doing good work. We hope our involvement with the awards will lead to us welcoming new members on board in the coming months.