I spent a very happy morning in Oxford yesterday, chairing a little seminar for ClimateCare on its plans through to 2020, and then celebrating the presentation of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise!
It was a great day, and a fantastic acknowledgement of all the incredible work that ClimateCare has been doing to keep the whole idea of ‘offsetting done well’ true and relevant, and to enable people to move beyond a very narrow definition of what offsetting means.
This is the press release that they put out yesterday – love the photo of two very happy ClimateCare Directors, Ed Hanrahan and Tom Morton, together with the Lord Lieutenant!
PRESS RELEASE
Tuesday 7 October 2014
Sustainability Leaders Gather to Celebrate ClimateCare’s Queen’s Award
Sustainability professionals from some of Britain’s best known companies are gathering today to celebrate the presentation to ClimateCare of a Queen’s Award for Enterprise by Mr Tim Stevenson OBE, Her Majesty’s representative in Oxfordshire.
Climate and development expert ClimateCare was recognised in the Sustainable Development category for its outstanding contribution to poverty alleviation and tackling climate change.
From its base in Oxford and project office in Nairobi, ClimateCare works with major global partners in business, NGOs and international governments to tackle some of the world’s most pressing issues, such as indoor air pollution, climate change and safe water provision, whilst delivering positive health and economic outcomes for communities in the developing world.
For ClimateCare CEO Edward Hanrahan, today is not just about celebrating business success, but acknowledging the passion, expertise and dedication of the ClimateCare team and its partners. Always looking to the future, Hanrahan also took the opportunity of this award ceremony to gather a select group of leading sustainability practitioners for a private roundtable, to openly share best practice and to discuss how an integrated Climate and Development approach could become more mainstream.
“Today has been an opportunity to thank our staff and our partners and to recognise their contribution in helping ClimateCare achieve this prestigious award. We are delighted that our work with leading public and private sector organisations, many of whom are represented here today, has already led to improvements in life for more than 6 million people and cut over 16.5million tonnes of carbon – but, of course, there is much more to do,” said Hanrahan.
Zelda Bentham, head of environment and climate change at insurance company Aviva, who attended today’s celebrations, said “Working with ClimateCare enables Aviva to make a measurable difference to people’s lives and at the same time take responsibility for its operational emissions. We’ve used the LBG methodology to confirm that over the last three years our ClimateCare programme has improved the lives of 395,000 people through cookstove and safe water projects, and cut over 250,000 tonnes of CO2.”
Another organisation represented was BITC Responsible Business of the Year 2013, Jaguar Land Rover, also a 2014 Queen’s Award winner. As a first step towards its target to create opportunities for 12 million people around the world by 2020, Jaguar Land Rover works with ClimateCare to support the entire Busia area of the LifeStraw project, helping to provide safe water to 700,000 people and at the same time, cutting enough carbon to offset its UK manufacturing emissions for an entire year.
Jonathan Garrett, CSR Director, Jaguar Land Rover explains “ClimateCare ensure we invest our budget in projects that deliver robust and tangible results. We are excited about continuing our work with the team to drive significant and meaningful change as we work towards a more sustainable future.”
Other guests present at the event included The Co-operative, and leading sustainability consultants, Forum for the Future; to name a few.
ClimateCare has worked with The Co-operative Group for over twelve years. “ClimateCare delivers projects that provide verified community benefits as well as carbon reductions, supporting our ethos as a leader in social responsibility. Most recently they have created new partnerships to help us benefit 14,000 people in our own 99-brand Fairtrade tea producer communities, while achieving carbon dioxide emissions reductions for our Funeralcare business and our ‘ecoinsurance’ motor product,” says Ben Norbury, The Co-operative.
ClimateCare’s Edward Hanrahan sees the Queen’s Award as an acknowledgement of the value of the organisations integrated Climate plus Care approach. “Since the announcement of the Queen’s Award, we have seen an increase in interest from other like-minded businesses looking to deliver better value for money by fulfilling their corporation social responsibility goals while also tackling carbon emissions.”
Mr Tim Stevenson OBE, Her Majesty’s representative in Oxfordshire presenting today’s Queen’s Award to ClimateCare, added: “With the business community becoming ever more engaged in social and environmental responsibility programmes, it is wonderful to see an Oxford-born business such as ClimateCare, use their expertise to help global businesses and governments address their policy goals and take real action on sustainable development – tackling climate change and improving lives. Well done to the team and to all their partners represented here today. I know that the Queen’s Award will inspire others to follow in their footsteps”
Photo Caption: Sustainability leaders at ClimateCare’s Queen’s Award presentation ceremony, toast ClimateCare’s achievement.
Photo Caption: ClimateCare Directors Edward Hanrahan and Tom Morton receive the Queen’s Award from Mr Tim Stevenson OBE, Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire.
ClimateCare
ClimateCare mobilises the power and scale of private finance to deliver projects with positive environmental and social impacts around the world. We combine the vision of a social enterprise and the commercial experience of an investment bank. Leveraging mainstream funding, we profitably deliver some of the largest, most successful corporate sustainability initiatives in the world.
From offices in Africa, Europe and Asia Pacific we help many of the world’s leading brands, organisations and governments scale up the impact of their initiatives. By investing their resources in projects that directly combat climate change and poverty, improve health and increase community welfare, we build better futures for millions of people around the world.
Find out more at www.climatecare.org
Queen’s Award
Queen’s Awards have been announced this year for outstanding business achievement in the fields of International Trade, Innovation and Sustainable Development.
The awards are made annually by HM The Queen, and are only given for the highest levels of excellence demonstrated in each category.
Winners of the Queen’s Awards can expect an invitation to attend a special reception at Buckingham Palace. They can also use The Queen’s Award Emblem in advertising, marketing and on packaging for a period of five years as a symbol of their quality and success.
To find out more visit www.gov.uk/queens-awards-for-enterprise