Nature's Path wins the E.F. Schumacher Award for BC's Greenest Business
BC Greens Announce Winner of E.F. Schumacher Award for BC’s Greenest Business
Submitted by Jacqui Ooi
http://www.greenparty.bc.ca/user/114
on Sun, 2007-10-21 08:07.
October 21, 2007 (Vancouver, BC) The Green Party of BC has announced organic food company Nature’s Path Foods as the winner of its inaugural E.F. Schumacher Award for BC's Greenest Business. Interim Leader Christopher Bennett presented the award last night at a dinner held at Royal Roads University in Victoria. Ken Melamed, Mayor for Whistler, BC, was the keynote speaker at the event.
Six finalists were chosen from a number of different industries, including food, energy, technology, waste removal and printing. Those six finalists were 1800-GOT-JUNK?, Cyclzone, Energy Aware, Green Printer, Nature’s Path Foods and ZenZero.
“Our panel reviewed all submissions carefully and found Nature’s Path Foods to excel in all criteria. This is exactly the kind of company we wanted to recognize – one that isn’t just marketing itself as ‘green’ but is truly walking the talk,” said Interim Leader Christopher Bennett.
Nature’s Path Foods won for its focus on sustainability in business. The company places equal importance upon the social, environmental and financial, where social progressiveness and environmental excellence are as important as profitability. They presently employ 350 people in green industry in North America.
“It’s an honour to be recognized by a party that is interested in creating a green economy,” said Jyoti Stephens, Sustainability Champion for Nature’s Path Foods.
The E.F. Schumacher Award was established by the GPBC to identify and applaud businesses that make environmental leadership paramount to their practices. Interim Leader Christopher Bennett also introduced the prize to demonstrate a growing shift towards supporting green business in BC, and to underline the critical role that industry can play in the race to solve the climate change crisis in Canada, and around the world.
“I thank each and every one of the companies who submitted nominations and look forward to the Schumacher Award becoming bigger and better in the years to come,” added Mr Bennett. “I’m so pleased to have had the chance to help establish such an important award for British Columbia.”
BACKGROUND INFORMATIONNomination Criteria
The winner of the E.F. Schumacher Award was decided by a panel of judges comprised of business experts, including small business owners, on five core areas of importance:
1. The company’s overall commitment to sustainable economic practices
2. Immediate impact on the BC environment
3. Focus on triple-bottom-line economic thinking
4. Potential job creation in BC
5. Overall innovative vision and leadership
About Ernst Friedrich Schumacher 1911-1977
An alternative economist, Schumacher was born in Germany but later moved to Britain. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in the 1930s who predicted the rise of OPEC and the problems of nuclear power. He is best known for his idea that “production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life". He encouraged local governments to create self-reliant economies and was a pioneer of user-friendly and ecologically suitable technology applicable to the scale of a community.
He was the best-selling author of Small is Beautiful (1973), A Guide for the Perplexed (1977) and Good Work (1979).
Several organizations have been founded in Schumacher’s name, including the New Economics Foundation (NEF), which promotes the progressive view of welfare economics and environmentalism. Its areas of interest include social accounting and auditing, indicators for sustainability, social investment and alternative currencies. In July 2006, they earned much fanfare for their Happy Planet Index, intended to challenge existing indices of a state's success, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Human Development Index (HDI).
http://www.greenparty.bc.ca/node/546
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