Wienerberger celebrates green success

Leading brick manufacturer Wienerberger has celebrated its own environmental success in their newly introduced internal Green Brick Awards, by naming its winning manufacturing plants as eco champions.

The company's Smeed Dean, Denton and Eldon factories all received individual recognition for their work with good causes over the past three years.

In the 'Social Progress' category, the Eldon factory scooped an award for its work undertaken with the Shaw Trust - a national charity that provides training and work opportunities for people who are disadvantaged in the labour market due to disability, ill health or other social circumstances.

The Eldon site has provided work placements to people with disabilities and three individuals have gone on to achieve full time employment elsewhere.

The 'Effective Protection of the Environment' category saw Smeed Dean win this award for its work with the Kent Wildlife Trust.

The factory has been actively involved in the protection and preservation of a number of species and has committed to ensuring species thrive in the areas around their site.

The company's Denton Factory was given the 'Special Merit Award' after a successful few years of raising funds for a local hospice, Derian House, by holding an annual bike ride.

The total figure raised to date exceeds GBP70,000, money which has made a big impact on the hospice.

In the final winning category for the 'Prudent Use of Resources', Smeed Dean won this for their design of a 'frog cleaner' to increase the amount of raw material they could recycle and re-use as part of their manufacturing process.

Mark Morris, sales and marketing director for Wienerberger, said: "Our factories strive to ensure that their processes are as environmentally responsible as possible, so we have introduced these awards to acknowledge the sites that have really stood out.

We chose our Eldon site as the overall winner which won the coveted Green Brick Award 2007.

It was agreed that Eldon's work with the Shaw Trust leading to people with disabilities going on to achieve employment that this was the most worthy winner of the three category winners".

Eldon will win a certificate, trophy and GBP2000 to go to charities of their choice for being the overall winner of the competition.

The chosen charities are: Butterwick Hospice, Durham Association Club for Young People, Durham Wildlife Trust and TFN Radio.

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