Special eco award for Tuxford Academy

The First Steps to Sustainability award, supported by Novozymes Biopharma, went to the school where students have designed and created four herb gardens next to the food rooms with the aim of raising awareness of food and its sources and the environmental ‘footprint’ in terms of food miles.

Professor David Bellamy, who chose the winners, congratulated Tuxford Academy on its success.

“The school is very proud of its eco club and so they should be, it’s fantastic,” he said.

The winners on the night were congratulated by TV naturalist and birdwatcher Bill Oddie at the ceremony held on Wednesday 21st December.

The awards, the only dedicated environmental awards programme in the county, showcase outstanding contributions by individuals, schools, businesses and community groups across the county to improving the environment.

Speaking about the Green Guardians Awards, Bill Oddie highlighted the fact that the Awards are recognised around the country as a great example of how to celebrate local green projects and congratulated everyone who had applied or been nominated.

Applications were invited for seven categories, and 2012 saw a record number of entries with winners in all but the business category receiving a cheque for £1,000 to help extended their projects.

The judging panel whittled down the applicants into a shortlist for each category before submitting their selections to Professor Bellamy to make the final selections.

All shortlisted nominees were invited to the gala event held at The Albert Hall Conference Centre Nottingham to find out if they had won.

Wildlife Trust communications and marketing manager Erin McDaid said the evening was a huge success.

“Year on year, the quality of the nominations and projects considered for Green Guardians Awards increases and to receive a record number of applications and nominations at a time of austerity just goes to prove that people really do see safeguarding our shared environment as being important,” she said.

“As always, we were delighted to be able to celebrate the hard work of all the applicants and nominees and having the support of Wildlife Trust’s Vice president Bill Oddie made the evening extra special. Many of the shortlisted candidates got to meet him and have their photographs taken with him and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the evening.”

Since the Awards were first presented Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust has been able to invest approximately £60,000 in prize money to help boost local green initiatives.

People and project from across the county were successful and a full list of all winners is available on the Wildlife Trust website www.nottinghamshirewildlife.org