WINNERS of the CREST21 Business Awards were able to finally meet the sponsors of their categories and some of the key stakeholders in the inaugural event at a G&T reception hosted by Silent Pool Distillers.

The Surrey Hills distillery was the winner of two CREST21 Awards: Going Circular and Resilience in Crisis, and General Manager Sophie Best said: “We wanted to host the reception to recognise and reward the fantastic work being done by local small businesses to improve their sustainability credentials.

“We always say it’s lots of small changes that add up to big change, and it can’t all be done at once. Watching the CREST Award entry videos was inspiring, and gave us lots of new ideas of things we could implement ourselves. A short distillery tour and a large G&T seemed the perfect way to celebrate and share further ideas and knowledge amongst a wonderful group of like-minded sustainability champions!”

Terry Tidbury, managing director of the News & Mail, said: “We’re really grateful to Silent Pool Distillers for offering to host a post awards reception to celebrate with other CREST21 Award winners and our sponsors. We’re delighted that the awards have been such a great success and of course we couldn't have done this without the University of Surrey’s Centre for the Environment and Sustainability. Based on the feedback and support we have had, everyone is keen to see the awards become an annual event so we have already started work on CREST22.”

Carol Miller, chairman of Woking Chamber of Commerce’s environment committee and who, as a PR consultant, has worked with the News & Mail and the CES to develop the awards, said: “CREST21 Awards had been such a positive experience; everyone had felt good about them and about being a part of them. The only thing was that they had been hybrid and so it was wonderful that Silent Pool were generous enough to organise the G&T reception so that the winners and sponsors could meet in person."