News
Sustainable City
Awards 2007
The Sustainable City Awards (previously known as the Liveable
City Awards) were established in 2001by the
City of London and are
led in partnership with 15 organisations, including livery
companies, trade bodies, voluntary sector organisations and
businesses. The 2007 awards, presented by Zac Goldsmith,
editor of The Ecologist, at the
Mansion House on 21 February, recognise and reward outstanding
achievement across the three pillars of sustainable development:
the environment, social issues and the economy.
The City Bridge Trust works in partnership with the
Worshipful Company of
Pattenmakers to run the award category 'Access to Goods and
Services for Disadvantaged Londoners'. The Pattenmakers sponsor the
award and two members of the Trust's Grants Committee sit with them
on the panel to select the category winner and runner-up.
This year's category winner
is Food for All whose
food recycling project was established in 1999 with the
principle aims of providing food relief to homeless people and
raising awareness about environmental issues. Food for All collects
over 830 tonnes of food per year from supermarkets
which is on or close to its sell-by date and would otherwise
go to landfill. The food is used to prepare healthy
free meals which are distributed daily by rickshaw and
van to 500 people in the Camden area. Meals are also available at
Food for All's resource centre in King's Cross. Food for
All recognises the importance of efficient waste
management and any unused food is composted while oil and cardboard
packaging is recycled. Food for all hits all the tagets for true
sustainability, meaning the judges thought them a worthy winner of
this year's Access award.
Runner up this year is
U Can Do I.T. which was
launched in 1998 with the sole aim of training blind, deaf and
disabled people how to use computers and the interenet. When
students need personal access to computers, U Can Do I.T. sources
recycled equipment and carries out one-to-one training in the
student's home or place of work. By giving disabled people a
sustainable way to bridge the 'digital divide', whilst addressing
the problem of electronic waste, the judges felt that U Can Do I.T.
demonstrates true sustainable credentials.
Congratulations to both of these organisations and to all the
other entrants, which were of a very high quality indeed.
For further information about the Sustainable City Awards,
click here.