Belu honoured with Queen’s Award for innovation in partnership with WaterAid
Her Majesty the Queen has awarded Belu Water with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation.
This prestigious award recognises outstanding business achievement by UK organisations, and Belu has been honoured for its pioneering Belu Filter Initiative, which serves a dual purpose of empowering restaurants and hotels to make a real difference to people’s lives whilst reducing their impact on the environment.
The simple yet effective initiative is the first of its kind in this country, providing a free filtration system to restaurants or hotels who, in return, agree to raise voluntary £1 contributions with their guests for unlimited still or sparkling filtered water.
Belu invests all of its profits in WaterAid, helping transform lives around the world. They have given £1 million to the international charity last year alone, bringing the total raised to £4 million.
On receiving the award, presented by Lord Lieutenant Ian Johnston at the WaterAid offices in London, Karen Lynch, Belu CEO said:
“We are delighted to achieve our second Queen’s Award, which acknowledges the success of the collaborative and partnership approach we take with our partners and customers. The Belu Filter Initiative has become a significant part of our business model and our principal driver of growth, helping us raise even more money for WaterAid.”
WaterAid’s Director of Communications and Fundraising Marcus Missen said:
“We would like to extend our warmest congratulations and thanks to Belu for everything they have achieved. Our valued partnership goes beyond finance as our values are aligned as we work together to help transform lives across the world with clean water and decent toilets. Our partnership will last until 2030 and with their determination to deliver, I am sure Belu will continue to grow and cement its place as a market leader and a true champion of social enterprise.”
ENDS
For more information, please contact:
Simon Harris, Senior Media Officer [email protected] or Laura Crowley, PR Manager, [email protected] or +44 (0)207 793 4965.
Or call our after-hours press line on +44 (0)7887 521 552 or email [email protected]
Notes to Editors:
BELU
Belu’s mission is to inspire all that there is a better way of doing business, and that through business, they can do more than make money, they can help solve some of the world’s problems too.
Belu provides hotels, restaurants and catering providers with natural British mineral water, filtration systems and refillable bottles with the lowest carbon footprint possible. As the UK’s most ethical water company and social enterprise, their goal is a world in which everyone, everywhere, has clean water to drink. They give 100% of profits to the charity WaterAid to help transform lives worldwide with clean water.
Belu is carbon neutral, making a forward commitment to reduce carbon footprint each year.
Their Ethical Glass bottles are made from recycled content and are 100% recyclable. They remain the first and only water brand to have achieved the independent British Standard Institute’s carbon neutrality standard, PAS 2060. For more information, visit belu.org or follow @BeluWater on Twitter.
About the Belu Filter Initiative
Belu supplies the filtration system without charge to hotels, restaurants and cafes, with guests making a voluntary contribution in return for still or sparkling filtered water. Contributions form part of the overall total funds that they give to their charity partner WaterAid.
Over 40 restaurants, cafes and hotels across the UK are now signed up to the Belu Filter Initiative, including: Kricket; Lino; Levan; Hicce; Hoi Polloi at Ace Hotel; The Curtain Hotel; Deliciously Ella; and Drake & Morgan.
WaterAid
WaterAid is working to make clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere within a generation. The international not-for-profit organisation works in 28 countries to change the lives of the poorest and most marginalised people. Since 1981, WaterAid has reached 26.4 million people with clean water and 26.3 million people with decent toilets. For more information, visit www.wateraid.org/uk, follow @WaterAidUK or @WaterAidPress on Twitter, or find WaterAid UK on Facebook at www.facebook.com/wateraid.
- 785 million people in the world – one in ten – do not have clean water close to home.[1]
- 2 billion people in the world – almost one in four – do not have a decent toilet of their own.[2]
- Around 310,000 children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases caused by poor water and sanitation. That's almost 800 children a day, or one child every two minutes.[3]
- Every £1 invested in water and toilets returns an average of £4 in increased productivity.[4]
- Just £15 can provide one person with clean water.[5]
- To find out if countries are keeping their promises on water and sanitation, see the online database www.WASHwatch.org
[1] WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2017 update and SDG Baselines
[2] WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2017 update and SDG Baselines
[3] washwatch.org
[4] World Health organization (2012) Global costs and benefits of drinking-water supply and sanitation interventions to reach the MDG target and universal coverage
[5] www.wateraid.org
