Sustainable Design & Innovation Award
This award recognises an business or organisation that has developed an innovative product or service that is having proven economic, environmental and/or social benefits, and is contributing to sustainable development.
Sustainable Product Design
A sustainable design innovation is one where: The innovation has been proven to be fit for purpose, ideally with scientific or empirical evidence to confirm these claims. The market and/or industry sector has responded with enthusiasm. Consequently the business will have started, or has the potential, to influence their sector with this innovation. The scope of influence is national, and possibly international. Sustainable products might have one or more of the following characteristics:
- Are made by a business/ organisation with a recognised environmental or sustainable management system.
- Create no waste (e.g. they are compostable (biodegradable plates/ bags), made from recycled materials or fully recyclable) and designed to reduce green house gas emissions.
- Use clean energy (e.g. use solar panel, wind turbine, person- powered (like a wind-up radio), rechargeable batteries etc) or produced by renewable energy.
- Run with less (e.g. efficient cars, water or energy efficient appliances or collect rain water) and have low embodied energy (i.e. made locally and produced using energy efficient practices) or diminish unnecessary materials use and enhance recyclability.
- Are Safe (e.g. organic, non toxic, low VOC content)
- Care for people (e.g. fair trade, provide information on sustainability such as sustainable building, schools etc)
- Have a recognised third party label (e.g. environmental choice, fair-trade certification, organic label etc) For more please visit www.biothinking.com
Sustainable Service Design
A sustainable service innovation is one where: The innovation has been proven to be fit for purpose, ideally with scientific or empirical evidence to confirm these claims. The market and/or industry sector has, or is expected to, respond with enthusiasm. Consequently the business will have started, or has the potential, to influence their sector with this innovation. The scope of influence is national, and possibly international. Sustainable services include developing new services that support sustainability by either:
- Purchasing, using, advising, supporting or promoting,
- sustainable products, practices and/or behaviours.
The service therefore encourages the:
- reduction of waste,
- increased use of clean, renewable energy, (i.e. reduce GHG emissions)
- Efficient use of resources (raw materials, energy water etc)
- Increased use of safe/ non toxic products
- Care for people
- Sustainable practices throughout business operations
