Action Sustainability presented with Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development

Last week, at a special ceremony in London the Supply Chain Sustainability School (delivered by Action Sustainability) was presented with a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development.

Launched in 2012, the School is an industry-wide collaboration of major companies to enable a sustainable built environment through knowledge and collaboration. The School is unique – it enables collaboration between competitor companies who share a common supply chain, and a realisation that the industry cannot develop the sustainable buildings and infrastructure society it needs without more sustainable suppliers. Its free online learning platform gives 50,000 registered users access to 3,000 learning resources, 400 virtual training sessions each year, and a range of diagnostic and benchmarking tools to support companies in focusing their sustainability strategies.

The presentation took place at Saddlers’ Hall on Thursday 12 January 2023. The Deputy Lord-Lieutenant of London presented the award to Ian Heptonstall and Shaun McCarthy OBE for the significant environmental, social and economic benefits the School had delivered to its Members and Partners, plus the pioneering work it led to set new standards in climate change, modern slavery, social value, sustainable supply chain management and more.

Ian Heptonstall, Director of Supply Chain Sustainability School, said: “When we first floated the idea of an online sustainability learning platform for the built environment industry, we were told it was unlikely that competing companies would collaborate, nor would people use an online training platform. But most of all, that the supply chain were simply not interested in sustainability.

“A decade on and 50,000 people have trained through the School – last year alone we had over 100,000 e-learning downloads. We’re thrilled to receive a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development. I see it as thank you to all those people who have joined us to collaborate and drive real sustainable change across our industry.”

Her Majesty The Queen personally approved the winners, who were publicly announced by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy on Thursday 21 April 2022. This was the last year a Queen’s Award was given by the late her majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are the most prestigious business awards in the country, only awarded for outstanding achievements, entitling winning businesses to use the esteemed Queen’s Awards Emblem for the next five years.