EnlightenNext and its business arm, The Window Venue Hire, have proudly won two awards from Ecovate, sponsors of the Green Business Innovators 2010 awards programme. Wanting to align our actions with our values, we’ve been implementing a number of sustainable environmental practices over the last few years and now we’re getting recognized for our efforts.

We won first prize for the ‘best eco initiative’. This means, of all the businesses that entered the competition, we had established an innovative recycling scheme that stood out from what others were doing. For example, our efforts, which have been underway since 2007 when we started separating paper and cardboard from plastic and glass and metal, have enabled us to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by 70%. Also, being a vegetarian venue, we generate a huge amount of food waste, we quickly jumped on board when the Islington Organic Waste Collection trial to underway in 2009. Now we’re regular composters—yes, even here in the heart of London!—and are leading the way for others to become more conscious of their environmental impact.

Our second award from the Green Business Innovators was for the ‘greenest business in the service sector,’ for which we were the runner-up. The benefits of our work to reduce energy consumption and our environmental footprint have extended far beyond our immediate goals to become an environmentally responsible organisation. Our reputation among discerning clients has improved substantially as more and more companies want to be known for their own commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility. They see holding events at The Window as a positive contribution to their efforts. Also, we are appreciated for our demonstrated integrity, which raises the overall profile of our company significantly. And another very important benefit of our sustainability practices, we believe, is the positive impact that it has on the well-being of our staff—no small thing for us. This, in turn, directly affects the quality of service we are able to offer clients. So all in all, we’ve quickly learned that what helps the environment helps all of us in many more ways than we may think.