The Environment Agency Water Efficiency Awards recognise and reward the work of businesses and organisations helping to conserve our precious water resources.

Envirowise supports the Industry and Business award. This award is for businesses and industry schemes that have improved water efficiency in manufacturing or in day to day water use at the their premises. This year's competition received entries from many varied businesses. After much consideration, six finalists were selected:

  • Bourne Salads
  • Kent Art Printers
  • Marshalls plc
  • Network Rail, Galliford Try and Hyder Consulting Limited (a joint entry)
  • Pitstop
  • Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK) Ltd

Marshalls plc received an commendation for the design and construction of the new concrete manufacturing facility at their Ramsbottom site. The aim of the project was to reduce the amount of mains water they used. This has been achieved by reusing the water used in process and collecting and reusing rainwater. They have reduced their mains water use by 95%, over 10,500 m3 a year. However the design of the facility also took into account all waste on site and Marshalls have also reduced the waste going to landfill by 9,725 tonnes.

The Envirowise Industry and Business award winner is Pitstop.

As part of their involvement in the Green Dragon initiative, Pitstop examined how they could reduce the negative environmental impact of their business. As a car wash, Pitstop use a lot of water; in fact it represents 85% of their consumable costs. They installed a closed loop water recycling system utilising a reed bed filtration system to clean the dirty water. They have reduced their water use by 60% and plan to reach 100% through using the reed bed filtration system and continual improvement. This project has helped them to be the first car wash company to achieve the Green Dragon Standard. The judges felt this was a good project showing a small business utilising an innovative solution in their sector. The judges were particularly impressed with the communication Pitstop have undertaken, explaining the benefits of the project to their customers.

Download the full award guide here.