The winner of this year’s Sustainable Business Award at the CIS Excellence Awards was announced at a glamorous and official black-tie dinner and ceremony hosted by Doubletree Hilton in Glasgow. The winner of the award for 2019 is BaxterStorey Scotland in partnership with City College of Glasgow. The Sustainable Business Award is given for recognised professionalism and efforts of catering businesses in the reduction of their environmental impact through the implementation of sustainable business policies. This year BaxterStorey Scotland is the catering company recognised for their proactive approach to finding innovative and sustainable solutions.
One of the sustainability programmes initiated recognised by the judging panel of this year’s CIS Excellence Awards is the “City Goes Green” initiative that involves the building of a greenhouse made from plastic water bottles recycled by the students from The College’s Student Association and NQ Journey Students and their Social Personal Development Students. BaxterStorey took a major part in the collection of the plastic bottles by continuously reminding staff and students, who purchase water in plastic bottles, to the designed all plastic bottles in the specially designed bins by BasterStorey for the initiative. The greenhouse is now built on the rooftop garden and houses herbs and vegetables used by the chiefs at BasterStorey to prepare lunches for the students.
Thanks to this and similar campaigns, students become increasingly aware of their environmental impact. Furthermore, another initiative by BuxterStorey called Grounds to Ground impressed the members of the judging panel. The initiative encourages customers to feed their gardens with recycled coffee grounds. Recycled coffee grounds act as a natural fertiliser for the garden. By asking for a small donation per each back of recycled coffee grounds, BasterStorey managed to raise over 200 British Pounds they’ve donated to the Glasgow Homeless Centre.
Furthermore, BaxterStorey is not new to the world of more sustainable and conscious decisions as a business. Since 2014, the catering company is segregating, weighting, and reporting all of the food waste produced by them. This initiative resulted in 42% reduction of the food waste across the business and it is a practice done regularly in more than 900 sites.
The Regional Managing Director of BaxterStorey, Jeremy Wood, commented: “We are incredibly proud of the team at City of Glasgow College, this achievement is a testament to the innovative work they have been doing to establish sound sustainable practices since we launched over our wider company agenda in 2006. We are continuously developing new ways of reducing our environmental impact, from using fresh locally sourced seasonal ingredients to our Grounds to Ground initiative, we are proud to part of a wider industry movement working towards a more sustainable food future.”
The Lead Procurement Manager, Deborah Fagan, said: “BaxterStorey has continually thrived in achieving all Sustainability Outcomes within this contract and have excelled in the delivery of additional Sustainability Initiatives at the Collage involving both Staff and Students. The commitment, time, and effort BasterStorey provide when it comes to sustainability is continually recognised by the Collage and makes this partnership the success that is today.”