Award for most sickening press release of the year
The Guardian, Ecover and National Grid – yuck. Lucy Siegle – yuck yuck. This sort of thing makes any sincere environmentalist want to go and cut down a tree:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The winners of the 2012 Observer Ethical Awards, in association with Ecover, were announced at a ceremony last night in London hosted by the Observer’s ethical living correspondent and TV presenter, Lucy Siegle, alongside the awards celebrity judges and sponsors.
The Observer Ethical Awards are now in their seventh year of celebrating the projects, businesses, ideas, campaigns and activists making sustainable change a reality.
The list of winners include:
Sport
Dartford Football Club
Dartford Football Club, an ethical stadium with water recycling, bike racks, grass roof and solar panels. The judges felt it was a great project that engaged with a hard to reach community.
Ecover Ethical Kids
Fact Fashion
Fact Fashion draws attention to issues, like the conservation of scarce resources to changing behaviours, by producing fashion items that display the powerful numbers associated with these problems. The judges felt it was different from any other awards entry they had seen before.
Local Hero sponsored by The Body Shop
Dr S Oliver Natelson
Dr S Oliver Natelson is a community campaigner that has worked for over 30 years supporting the local wood and nature reserve in Barnet. The judges felt that he is the definition of a hero, incredibly inspiring and informative.
Grassroots Projects sponsored by Timberland
Climate Change Schools Project
The Climate Change Schools Project (CCSP), based in Durham, is a not-for-profit-project that puts climate change at the heart of the national curriculum.
Business initiative sponsored by Jupiter Asset Management
Ecotricity
Ecotricity is a green energy company and supplier and generator of eco electricity and gas and the judges felt that what it is doing will change the energy world.
Blog sponsored by environmentguardian.co.uk
DfID – Hannah Ryder
A blog from a UK civil servant showing how economics, poverty and action to avoid climate change and to protect the environment in developing countries relates to real life. The judges felt that Hannah’s blog was well written, talked about important topics and was an effective way of sharing information.
Arts and Culture sponsored by Festival Republic
When China met Africa
A film highlighting the new problems associated with the Chinese expansion in Africa. The judges felt that the power of the film is that is does not make any judgments – it raises a lot of issues and questions but leaves it to viewer to make their own decisions.
Big Idea sponsored by National Grid
SafetyNet
The SafetyNet is a new trawling system that cuts down on the catch and subsequent discarding of juvenile and endangered fish. The judges felt that although this project was still in the very early stage it was one of the most important ideas the world is going to see.
Fashion & …
