April 22, 2014
After winning a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development in 2010, recycling and waste management firm Recycling Lives has just scooped the award for the second time.
On this occasion, it was the company’s recently launched “Flat Panel Display recycling and employment project” at HMP Kirkham that impressed the judging panel.
By establishing a busy recycling centre within the prison, and integrating the training and work experience opportunities there with the six-stage charity programme available at its own premises, Recycling Lives offers prisoners at HMP Kirkham the chance to secure supported accommodation and stable employment after release.
Granting the award for a second time to Recycling Lives, the office for the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise stated:
Widely accredited for its environmental management, the company targets niche recycling markets, processing previously unrecyclable items, such as flat screen displays, and making working components available for re-sale where possible.
Thus, Recycling Lives diverts products from landfills and contributes significantly to environmental improvement. Through its work, the organisation offers ex-offenders, homeless people and long-term unemployed individuals routes to employment via rehabilitation, training and accommodation, enabling them to develop vital social and employability skills.
Bu supporting charities, social enterprises, community ventures and ethical businesses, Recycling Lives sets a benchmark not only for the sector, but for industry in general.
Recycling Lives was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in 
Preston, Lancashire. The company is considered a social business by its directors, having expressed a commitment in 2011 to working only on projects which demonstrate a positive social impact.
In addition to its earlier Queen’s Award, Recycling Lives was championed for its commitment to positive social impact in a 2012 Government white paper entitled “Social Justice: Transforming Lives”. The company’s founder and chief executive, Steven Jackson OBE, was also recognised in the 2013 New Year Honours List for Services to Employment and the Community in Lancashire.
Mr Jackson commented on this latest award, saying:
We’re all incredibly proud here at Recycling Lives: to be recognised not once but twice by the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise is a huge honour.
For years, Recycling Lives has sought to develop effective and creative solutions to recycling and waste management challenges that prioritise not only environmental sustainability, but social and economic sustainability as well.
Organisations need to see that it is absolutely possible to build up and sustain a successful commercial business while making Corporate Social Responsibility a primary concern.
In addition to expanding its commercial recycling and waste management activities, Recycling Lives hopes to extend its social impact via its charity-led Community Dotcom services.
The company’s nationwide Community Dotcom schemes, including SkipHireNetwork.org, OfficeClearanceNetwork.org, BulkyWaste.org and ScrapCarNetwork.org, enable charities and ethical businesses to deliver reuse and recycling services to householders across the country.
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