The new award, which recognises and rewards a brand licensed product or range’s credentials on the sustainability front, was presented as part of a lavish ceremony held at the Hilton Park Lane Hotel in London.
Hosted by comedian Ed Gamble, the brand licensing community’s annual get-together, was attended by 400 retailers, licensees and brand owners.
The Brand & Lifestyle Licensing Awards reward excellence in product innovation, brand licensing management as well as retail execution within the ever-evolving brand and lifestyle licensing arena.
Eden’s compostable coffee capsules, which have been developed with Fresh Coffee Shop Limited, are a range of home compostable coffee capsules that directly address the problem of plastic waste, allowing consumers to enjoy great tasting coffee without contributing to landfill.
The disposal of used coffee capsules, often made with a mixture of plastic and aluminium, is a huge and growing problem for the environment.
Eden’s capsules reduce this problem as they break down into simple raw materials in a domestic compost heap in a matter of weeks.
The capsules are made from naturally occurring biodegradable polymers and produced using energy generated from wind, sun, hydropower and biogas, so they do not contribute to climate change either. They are also free from aluminium and oil-based plastic.
The coffee capsules are available in 10 varieties: Arabica, Colombian, Costa Rican, Espresso decaf, Guatemalan, Gusto Espresso, Italian Espresso, Lungo decaf, Lungo and Peruvian decaf.
The capsules are currently available through Eden, Fresh Coffee Shop, Waitrose, Lakeland, Amazon and Ocado.
The Sustainability Brand Licensed Range Award was sponsored by Products of Change, a global educational hub aimed at driving sustainable change across consumer product markets and beyond, and saw Eden face stiff competition from the likes of the Natural History Museum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Marine Conservation Society.
Alongside the compostable coffee capsules, Eden received two further nominations in the same category for its Canopy Collection with LSA and DuraOcean Furniture with LifeStyleGarden.
Tracey Smith, Eden Project International’s Commercial Manager, said: “Alongside our partner, Fresh Coffee Shop, we are delighted that our compostable coffee capsules have been chosen as the winner of The B&LLAs very first sustainability category.
“Sustainability is at the heart of what the Eden Project is all about and we work with carefully selected companies to develop products that meet our quality and environmental standards. Our coffee capsules are a great example of that and we hope products like this inspire consumers to make small changes in their own lives, which in turn will make a big difference to our planet.”
Eden’s licensing programme is focused on building long term, purposeful partnerships with like-minded companies that share similar values with the Eden Project. These partnerships demonstrate the importance of People and Planet, as well as Profit, are reciprocal in nature, go beyond licensing and are innovative and offer solutions to the big global challenges of our time.
Sustainable products, provenance of ingredients and the stories behind each product play an integral role in Eden’s licensing programme and always have a link to Eden itself, through the plants in the Biomes or Eden’s charitable programmes and awareness-raising campaigns. Every licensed product represents an opportunity to reach a wider global audience, including people who might never visit an Eden Project.
As an educational charity and social enterprise, money raised by Eden’s licensing programme helps to support transformational projects and learning programmes.
For more information on the Eden Project’s licensing programme see www.edenproject.com.
