The accolade, which is awarded annually by Her Majesty the Queen, was this year (April 21) presented to an estimated 160 recipients for outstanding business achievement in international trade, innovation and sustainable development.
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Veolia was named as a winner of the Queens Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development for its new business strategy, which focuses on manufacturing green energy and calories.
The firm, which recycles over one million tonnes of waste annually in the UK, also received the award for devoting 20,000 hours to charity work and donating 50 million to community projects in a year.
Estelle Brachlianoff, Veolia Environnement executive vice-president for the UK & Ireland, said: It is an honour to be recognised by Her Majesty the Queen for the work we have done over the last five years transforming the business.
This award highlights the work all 14,000 members of staff have undertaken to continue to drive the business forward – for us sustainability is not part of our business, it is our business.
Innovation
Meanwhile, gasification specialist Chinook Sciences picked up a Queens Award for Innovation for RODECS its end-stage recycling technology for recovering recyclable metal and generating energy-from-waste.
The technology, which involves a combination of gasification and pyrolysis, converts waste into clean synthetic gas that is used to produce electricity by fuelling gas engines and steam turbines.
The firm is currently helping to construct a 100 million industrial gasification plant at Oldbury in the West Midlands, which is being developed in partnership with EMR. It will process 180,000 tonnes of post-shredder residues and recover 10,000 tonnes of clean metal a year (see letsrecycle.com story).
Commenting on the award, Dr Rifat Chalabi, Chinook Sciences group chairman and chief executive said: We are very grateful that our unique ground-breaking technology, global success and international contributions have been recognised in this way. The Award will help us to continue to boost our exports and investment, which in turn means more job creation.
In the past five years, staff numbers at Chinooks HQ in Nottingham have doubled and continue to grow. Chinooks UK supplier base now includes more than 240 British companies who supply over 90% of Chinooks End-Stage Recycling technology.
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