CREST22, Surrey’s only green business awards, are back again.

Founded in Woking, the awards celebrate the best of environmentally sustainable business practices across the county and bring rewards for all those involved, including its sponsors.

“We have returned as a sponsor because of the positive experience of being involved previously,” said Andrea Hughes, technical director for Mayer Brown Ltd, which is backing the Going Circular Award category for a second year.

“We also wish to be involved in pushing the sustainability agenda and to do this within our community and, finally, due to the calibre and credibility of the other organisations involved.”

As a sponsor the company sees a commercial benefit in being recognised as a leader on the environment platform.

“Sponsorship aligns with the core of many of our disciplines such as sustainable transport, sustainable drainage, construction environmental management, waste management, air quality and noise control,” she added. “It’s also concordant with the aims of our stated environmental policy.”

Holdsway, sponsoring the CREST Awards the Efficiency Champion category for the second year, has been helping businesses to accelerate change, improvement and efficiency for a decade.

Nick Diprose, Holdsway founding partner, said environmental efficiency is a vital part of that requirement: “Business and organisational efficiency demand a rigorous focus on avoiding waste, whether it’s materials, energy, human effort, investment and time. We introduce interim executives, senior managers and leaders to companies from our extensive network who are experienced in accelerating change.

“Our interim executives deliver efficiency improvements across operations, supply chain, commercial, customer service, finance, technology and digital transformation.”

Whether they are working with a new business, service, product and brand launches or more mature companies, Holdsway believes these organisations have benefited from these change management services in a rapidly changing market environment.

“The CREST Awards raise the profile of the benefits of a positive environmental strategy,” added Nick. “Using all our available resources – including people – in the most efficient ways possible will have long-lasting and positive results for businesses. We support the continuous efforts of organisations to seek out more efficient ways of working and today, more than ever, that includes being environmentally sustainable.

A new sponsor this year is the Surrey branch of one of the world’s biggest business networking groups, BNI.

Surrey BNI are supporting the Sustainability Impact category. Executive director, Jonathan Hamilton, said he was driven by a personal commitment to protecting the environment as well as seeing it as a real opportunity.

“Sustainability is really important to me and to BNI. We live in a throwaway culture and I do all I can to proactively reverse that tide and try to leave the world in a better state for future generations,” says Jonathan.

“However, I also feel that sponsoring CREST Awards brings real value to the Surrey business community. It’s about visibility and recognition. Visibility, because of the importance in acknowledging and working with an environmental angle in mind. Recognition, because of those already doing so and the outliers doing way more than they need to – setting an example for the rest of us.”

THE CREST22 Business Awards, launched in January, will be held on 19 May in Woking at the WWF’s Living Planet Centre.

The awards were initiated by the News & Mail in association with the University of Surrey’s Centre for the Environment and Sustainability.

The awards are free to enter, with Friday 25 March the deadline for entries this year.

Entrants can enter any of the five award categories: Transforming Food, Going Circular, Efficiency Champion, Sustainability Impact and Smarter Transport. A further sixth accolade will be given the 2022 Sustainability Hero, the judges’ choice for the business or individual who has shown outstanding performance in all aspects of sustainability.

CREST awards are a key element of the work of the Greener Future Programme of its headline sponsor Surrey County Council (SCC).

Cllr Marisa Heath, SCC’s cabinet member for environment, said: “We’re delighted to be headline sponsor for the CREST awards again.

“It’s a great initiative to shine a light on the fantastic work Surrey businesses are doing to reduce their carbon footprint. Supporting the green economy in Surrey is an essential part of helping us achieve our aim of being a net zero carbon county by 2050.”

To enter CREST22 Business Awards, visit www.crestawardssurrey.co.uk/crest22-applications