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The Soap Co. win PwC Award

CLARITY-The Soap Co. wins PwC Building Public Trust Award

 

The Soap Co. logoCLARITY-The Soap Co. was named winner of the Environmental Impact Category in the PwC Social Entrepreneurs Club Awards, which were announced at the annual PwC Building Public Trust Awards lunch on 30th November.

These awards recognise PwC Social Entrepreneurs Club members who are implementing innovative and impactful solutions to society’s challenges. The winner is selected by a panel of judges and awarded a trophy and a £5,000 prize.

As part of its submission, CLARITY-The Soap Co. detailed how it recently become proud holders of The Planet Mark™, an internationally-recognised and trusted sustainability certification programme in partnership with the Eden Project. It has also committed to reducing its carbon footprint annually by 5% and to improving accountability in how and from where materials are sourced. Ingredients, bottles and labels wherever possible come from UK suppliers and they are either recycled, compostable or recyclable. CLARITY-The Soap Co. manufactures its products by using 100% green energy – a clear statement of its commitment to the environment.

In addition, the organisation has just formulated a new eco range for both of its brands. The CLARITYECO+ range – with an eco-foaming, biodegradable hand wash made with 100% eco certified ingredients – and The Soap Co.’s new Eco & Bee Friendly collection.

Anja Batista Sonksen, one of CLARITY-The Soap Co.’s Trustees, and Camilla Marcus Dew, Head of Commercial at CLARITY–The Soap Co., received the award from ITN’s Mary Nightingale.

Camilla commented: “It is so gratifying be recognised by the PwC judges as a leading eco-friendly social enterprise that is establishing best practice in how to manufacture great products without ever compromising on our environmental ethos.

“This demonstrates we are on the right track in both delivering and communicating our vision for the future. We pride ourselves on having a no compromise approach; our vision is to make environmentally friendly and socially responsible products mainstream. We have worked hard to better articulate how our social enterprise ethos is integrated into our business practices and to sharpen our proposal both from a marketing and sales perspective.

“We are currently making real headway with our new CLARITYECO+ range and we have already gained the attention of a number of supermarkets. In addition, we have launched our brand new The Soap Co. luxury Eco & Bee Friendly collection that is doing well in what is a hugely competitive market.”

CLARITY–The Soap Co. was also ‘highly commended’ for the second year running in the prestigious, One to Watch award category at the 2017 Social Enterprise UK Awards in November. The award is given ‘for a social enterprise that can clearly articulate their future vision and how they are going to achieve it.’ CLARITY – The Soap Co. was also shortlisted in the Consumer Facing Social Enterprise category, ‘for a social enterprise that produced or delivers a retail product or service to the general public.’

CLARITY logo

Social enterprise launches new eco-foaming hand wash

New Honey Blossom Eco Foaming Hand Wash from Social Enterprise Mark holder CLARITY, is launched into large organisations and the government to support the employment of blind, disabled and otherwise disadvantaged people.

Developed in co-operation with the Cabinet Office and Interserve, the product, and the fact that CLARITY now holds The Planet MarkTM, emphasises their endeavour to improve environmental credentials.

The hand wash, made with 100% eco certified ingredients, is vegan, biodegradable and allergen, gluten and GMO free.  In addition, it is free from SLS, sulphates and parabens making it efficient and environmentally friendly for CLARITY’s customers. Care has gone into the selection of each and every ingredient.

The foaming hand wash uses just 20% of the dosage compared to the liquid alternative so will last five times as long.  Studies1 have found that foaming technology reduces the amount of water used by almost 10% whilst increasing the likelihood that individuals will wash their hands; promoting good hand hygiene.

The hand wash has been developed as a Buy Social Corporate Challenge product, an initiative from Social Enterprise UK, which Interserve is a partner of and the Cabinet Office supports. It aims to get businesses to spend £1 billion with social enterprises, such as CLARITY, by 2020. This hand wash makes it easy to switch your soap for social good.

Large corporations and Buy Social Corporate Challenge partners are planning to support the initiative by purchasing the hand wash, whilst several government departments are also set to switch to the new CLARITY range.

The hand wash is the first in CLARITY’s new environmentally friendly range – CLARITYeco. All the products in this range are being created with the environment at the forefront of the design process and will use natural, cruelty and paraben/SLS free ingredients.

Camilla Marcus-Dew, Head of Commercial at CLARITY said: “We are delighted to launch our new eco foaming hand wash with the support of our Buy Social Corporate Challenge partners. The result is an environmentally friendly product which will be loved by all employees, customers and visitors. It has secured employment for our staff, creating social value in many communities across the UK. We look forward to rolling it out to other Government departments and corporations.”

Richard Beattie, Director of Procurement at Interserve said: “At Interserve, we take our sustainability responsibilities very seriously – both from an environmental and social capital perspective. So, we are really pleased to be working with the CLARITY team to bring the first Buy Social Corporate Challenge product to market. This new product strengthens CLARITY’s offering by combining social impact and eco-friendly credentials – it’s a great product which I’m sure our clients will love.”

Peter Holbrook CBE, Chief Executive of Social Enterprise UK said: “This is a fantastic example of what’s possible when the public, private and social enterprise sectors collaborate to bring a commercial solution to market that will change the lives of disabled people. The Cabinet Office were a founding strategic partner of the Buy Social Corporate Challenge, so it’s great to see them “walking the walk” through buying from social enterprises themselves. We’d like to now see other government departments, as well as more businesses, follow in their footsteps.”