The Green Organisation
Rewarding environmental best practice since 1994
THE GREEN ORGANISATION
THE STORY SO FAR
In the early 1990s, we had various bodies emerging to play watchdog on negative environmental behaviours – but there was no-one prepared to look at the positive side and recognise the efforts being made by businesses, communities and individuals to help the environment.
So we started The Green Organisation Ltd to fill the void.
It was decided to be member-driven, independent, non-profit and non-political with the stated aim to recognise, reward and promote environmental best practice around the world.
At that time we thought that councils should be setting the pace in environmental standards, so our first initiative was to launch the Green Apple Environment Awards for Local Authorities.
This proved to be a very attractive incentive for them and instantly became an annual event.
We then had businesses asking if they could enter – so the Green Apple Awards for Commerce and Industry were introduced.
To mark the Queen’s Jubilee, around the turn of the millennium, we were asked to create a campaign to celebrate that landmark, so we thought a Green Apple Award for the Built Environment and Architectural Heritage would be appropriate.
At the same time, we started to attract interest from overseas, leading to the introduction of the pan-industry International Green Apple Awards for Environmental Best Practice. In this campaign, UK companies would compete against each other, Europeans against Europeans, etc., etc.
Not content with competing against compatriots, we listened to their comments and responded with the Green World Awards, with no geographical boundaries. At this very top level, if you excel, for example, in wastes management you can compare your efforts against those of every other company in that category, regardless of their country or business sector.
And if you become our Green World Champion of Champions, we will stage the following year’s presentation ceremony in your country. This aligns with one of the aims of our mission statement – ’to promote environmental best practice around the world’ – and has taken us to New Zealand, Turkey, USA, Vietnam, South Korea and Brazil in recent years.
A few years ago, we started to hear another request: Why don’t you have awards for Corporate Social Responsibility because the environment features strongly in CSR?
So began the International CSR Excellence Awards, which also has a route into the Green World Awards.
And with Corporate Social Responsibility activities quickly increasing across businesses of all kinds, we decided it would be better to fully recognise the wider range of this by launching a company dedicated to the cause – The CSR Society Ltd.
This is a sister company to The Green Organisation, operating on the same non-profit membership-and-awards business model. But whereas we plant thousands of trees for our Green Organisation members, the CSR Society members can save thousands of lives through our ‘Another Life, Another Day’ campaign.
Winners in all of our campaigns are invited to prestigious awards ceremonies to be presented with their trophies in magnificent surroundings such as the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral, Kensington Palace and the Houses of Parliament, London.
A tradition has developed that now sees us presenting the International Green Apple Environmental Best Practice Awards each year in the impressive Houses of Parliament, Palace of Westminster, London.
Our winners are chosen by an independent team of volunteer judges from a range of relevant backgrounds; all of them experts in their own fields and all dedicated to environmental improvement.
We have also had numerous famous celebrities volunteer to present the awards over the years, but this is now regarded as such an honour that we invite our Champion of Champions to hand over the trophies during the year of their ‘reign’.
We are very grateful to all those people who have helped us over the years – and particularly all of those who are helping the environment and spreading the CSR message. Whether they win an award or not, they are all doing their best to make the world a better and more sustainable place.
And with their support we will continue to help them achieve objectives that will help everyone. We ensure that they get the success, recognition and publicity they deserve, and we are constantly working together on new projects and developments.
So watch this space…
