finger’s crossed for next week ..

Woo-hoo!! Ecomodo has been shortlisted for ‘The Best use of Online Media’ Green Award and the winner is to be announced at a Gala Ceremony held next week at the Natural History Museum, London.

Launched in 2006 to critical acclaim, The Green Awards were set up to recognise and reward creative work that communicates the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility, sustainable development and ethical best practice in any sector and across any marketing discipline.

We are going up against some stiff competition from Sainsbury’s and Cape Farewell as well as some friends from The London Borough of Brent and the GLA.

During the ceremony, Sir David Attenborough CBE will be awarded the inaugural green ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ for his committed efforts to broaden public understanding of environmental issues. Meeting Sir David Attenborough would be an award in itself so it would be absolutely awesome if we come home with a Green Award too.

Click here to find the Shortlist for The Green Awards 2010 – oh and please wish us luck!!

westminster’s new eco-apprentices ..

As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010, Ecomodo was invited by Westminster City Council to participate in the “Eco-bag Enterprise Challenge” at Westminster City Boys School. The purpose of the event was to challenge the students of Year 8, to think about sustainability both in terms of the environment and a business – not an easy task.

In true “Apprentice” style and in teams of 4 – 5 boys, their challenge was to create an eco-friendly bag company and produce a new design for a reusable bag. Given a budget of up to £300 the students had to: understand why reusable bags were important; choose team roles for each member of the group; understand and describe their target customer; and work out their finances to deliver the design they wanted within budget. On top of this, the boys had to deliver a pitch back to the class with the best ‘company’ winning a prize – for boys aged 12-13 – the stakes were high.

The day commenced with a talks from our hosts (the Westminster Education Business Partnership) who outlined the activities of the challenge and Corinne Dickinson from Waste Watch who gave the students insights into the environmental issues surrounding plastic bags on which theys were to be quizzed. Corinne also mentioned that “plastic bags are only for 12 minutes of their lifetime” – the same as a drill I thought.

We then split into groups and as a “business mentor”, I was given a team to work with who called their company “Stars in the Making” – and they certainly were.

Whilst talking about plastic bags and shopping they made an observation that sports shops, unlike supermarkets, were still quite happily giving plastic bags to customers. So they focused their idea around a reusable sports bag that was purchased alongside goods from sporting outlets. Aimed at teenaged boys to young men and promoting becoming a “star” of sport, the bag could then be reused by the customer every time they went to the gym or played football. At the end of the day, the whole bag, including dirty sports gear (minus shoes), could be thrown in the washing machine to be cleaned and ready to reuse.

During the pitches, I was thoroughly amazed at the creativity of the students who alongside the re-usable sports bag, came up with reusable bags for christmas and wonderful slogans like “Save tomorrow today”.

Alongside Corinne from Waste Watch and myself, other business mentors volunteered their time from: Loop, GreenLondon.net, SEED, Healthy Planet, The Do Nation and we all had a truly inspired time at Westminster City School.

For me, this initiative from Westminster City Council, brings together the big issues that face our society today; how do we live environmentally within our means, re-build our economy and create business that are sustainable in every sense of the word. To educate and focus these young minds on the problems of today – can only help to provide us with young, smart, eco-minded entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

ecomodo wins a green apple award ..

Yesterday at the Houses of Parliament, Ecomodo was awarded the prestigious ‘Green Apple Bronze Award’ for Best Environmental Practice in the Community.

Presented, this year, by Raleigh Addington, Operations Director for the charitable organisation ‘Tickets For Troops‘, Meriel and I felt very privileged to collect the award on behalf of our team and for Ecomodo to be recognised so early on for its achievements. We hope this is a great sign of great things to come.

From over 500 nominations, Ecomodo was selected for the award, alongside other diverse projects from large organisations in both public and private sector to small community projects and everything in between. The assortment of projects was overwhelming but all had one thing in common: to help do their bit for a greener tomorrow.

For 16 years, the International Green Apple Environment Awards have been run by The Green Organisation – an independent, non-political, non-activist, non-profit environment group dedicated to recognising, rewarding and promoting environmental best practice around the world. The Green Organisation is funded by membership and sponsorship, with valuable support from the Environment Agency, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, the Municipal Journal and several other professional bodies.

To see photos of the event check out our facebook page.