Sustainability

About this category

Never has there been a more pressing need for operators, designers and investors to step up and innovate to reduce the environmental impact of attractions.

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Overall winner

First Place in Sustainability 2021

AOP Water Treatment

Clear Comfort

Discover the healthiest water quality, the easy way. Clear Comfort’s patented and award-winning Advanced Oxidation (AOP) water treatment systems minimize patrons’ exposure to toxic pool, spa and waterpark chemicals and harmful disinfection by-products – so they can Swim Happy™ in clean, clear water that’s kind to eyes, skin and lungs.

clear comfort logo

Designed for simplicity and sustainability, Clear Comfort is a cost-effective win for everything from recreation centers to waterparks.

At Clear Comfort, we believe that you shouldn’t have to compromise your health or our environment to enjoy swimming, which is why we strive to make every swimming experience healthy, eco-friendly and happy.

By making sustainable waves, Clear Comfort’s patented Advanced Oxidation (AOP) water treatment technology has forever changed an industry that has relied on toxic chemicals for decades.

clear comfort box

In 2014, Steve Berens, CEO and Co-Founder of Clear Comfort, knew he could provide more sustainable, healthy and enjoyable swimming experiences with the least amount of chlorine possible. Today, Clear Comfort’s AOP is improving water quality and care in water parks, resorts, aquatics facilities, universities, professional sports training facilities and more.

With Clear Comfort’s Advanced Oxidation (AOP) water treatment systems, water park patrons can experience the freshest-feeling water with up to 30% to 50% reduction of toxic chemicals. When the world changed in 2020, Clear Comfort maintained its team, refocused its strategy and dedicated resources to help its customer segments.

With a “helping over selling” mentality, Clear Comfort collaborated with industry leaders – ranging from a Diversity in Aquatics executive to a U.S. Olympic Hall of Famer to a medical professional – to create webinars, articles and other tools that helped water park and commercial aquatics professionals safely meet customers’ healthy demands and sustainably keep their businesses operating.

Through a combination of educating and delivering a best-in-class technology, Clear Comfort prospered by helping a traditional industry adapt to more sustainable innovations and practices of the future.

More information can be found here.

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Runners up

Second Place in Sustainability 2021

Golden Mummies of Egypt

Nomad Exhibitions

Presented at some of the world’s leading galleries and museums on a three-year tour that commenced in early 2020, this extensive exhibition features over one hundred objects including eight mummies from the world-class collections of Manchester Museum, part of the University of Manchester in the UK. Through fascinating interpretation, beautiful object displays, multimedia programmes, and engaging interactives the exhibition examines hopes and fears about the afterlife when Egypt was part of the Greek and Roman worlds between 300BCE–200 CE.

nomad exhibitions logo

Nomad did not just want to create the world’s most sustainable touring exhibition, they also extended their ambitions to create a production that was impeccably well designed, providing visitors with an experience of displays that have a permanent quality.

As a further innovation, the exhibition features fully integrated conservation grade display cases to securely house the collections. These have been uniquely designed by Nomad to incorporate LED lighting systems and low air exchange rates enabling further energy efficiencies.

Beyond the stunning aesthetics, the exhibition has been designed in every detail to meet its carbon-neutral target: only reusable or recyclable materials are used in construction; materials have a long life-span extending far beyond the exhibition itself; and, modular display components pack tightly to considerably reduce transportation volume.

So confident is Nomad Exhibitions of its ability to tour the exhibition carbon neutrally, that the company has signed up to the Climate Neutral Now initiative, part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, becoming the first international touring exhibitions company to do so.

Nomad Exhibitions was founded as a small team of designers in 2012 with the objective to radically rethink how international touring exhibitions are designed, produced and managed. In particular, Nomad's research and development over the past decade has focussed on maximising efficiencies in modular design and sustainable building practise. Successive Nomad productions during this period have continually refined these ideas culminating in the exhibition Golden Mummies of Egypt.

All stages of the exhibition’s life-cycle are carefully audited and tracked by the Nomad team, from design and build through to touring and transportation and finally to de-commissioning. All activities are optimised for sustainability, and any unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions, such as those generated through transportation, are meticulously quantified and compensated for through UN certified emission reduction programmes.

golden mummies of egypt exhibit

As a key principle, Nomad does not use greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emission reduction programmes as a primary means to achieve their climate-neutrality; off-setting is Nomad’s final resort, once all other options have been explored. GHG’s generated through transport itself is significantly reduced by Nomad’s very low transport volumes, by comparison to other similar scale productions, and low transit weights.

Nomad’s carbon-neutral pledge is tested against Climate Neutral Now’s three main objectives for carbon neutrality, to measure, reduce, and offset. In practice, this means Nomad will comprehensively evaluate the life cycle of the exhibition by measuring their GHGs, reducing emissions throughout all activities, and financially compensating any emissions that cannot be avoided through UN certified emission reduction programmes.

The Nomad team are continually striving to improve their work and their productions by sourcing new materials and technologies further enhancing the exhibition experience for visitors around the world and ensuring that touring exhibitions, and the sharing of international collections, continue to have a place in a sustainable future.

More information can be found here.

Partners

Developed and produced by Nomad Exhibitions in partnership with Manchester Museum

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Third Place in Sustainability 2021

Greener Guest

5 Million tonnes of plastic is used in the UK each year, (53% of this in the service sector). The UK is second only to the US in the amount of plastic waste generated per person, and just 29% of our plastic waste is recycled. This is polluting our environment; According to the Marine Conservation Society 5,000 items of plastic are found per mile of beach in the UK. Plastic use has only increased since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and many heavily visited areas and attractions are struggling to cope with the litter generated.

greener guest logo

Increasingly tourism businesses want to play their part and cut single-use plastics, but there is a lot of confusion and mis-selling in this area, with bioplastics in particular often mistakenly being offered as a more sustainable solution.

Greener Guest provides FREE expert resources, (including training modules, guides, and top tips) specifically designed for the tourism sector. These equip businesses with the tools needed to make positive change.

Greener Guest also helps attractions source genuinely sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic, by offering a range of eco products for sale. Ranging from charcoal water filters to edible ice cream spoons, all come from a carefully selected range of ethical suppliers and are listed with full sustainability information (covering everything from the raw materials used, to packaging disposal), making it easy for businesses to be more sustainable. The website is heavily oriented towards British brands, to support local businesses and help keep transport emissions to a minimum.

greener guest sustainable tips

Greener Guest is the first platform to connect the producers of innovative sustainable products to tourism businesses that don’t have the time or knowledge to search for them.

Background

90% of consumers say that it’s important to limit plastics use in catering. Greener Guest is a brand new and innovative solution that makes it easier for visitor attractions to meet this demand for change.

greener guest help

Greener Guest is a digital marketplace and knowledge hub for sustainable procurement in the tourism industry. Tourism and hospitality are major contributors to the global plastic waste problem, accounting for 350 billion pieces of plastic waste globally per year (according to research by Travel Without Plastic).

We have been working with tourism businesses to reduce plastic since 2007 and through this we’ve identified a pressing need to provide practical alternative solutions that make it easy for tourism businesses to make positive change.

Business model

Greener Guest does not hold stocks of the products sold on its site, but instead operates as an intermediary between tourism businesses and suppliers of innovative sustainable products, taking a commission on sales to finance running costs. We are a social enterprise and the more successful we are, the more profit we have to put back into the business and the larger impact we can have on the global plastic problem – it truly is an investment in the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit.

greener guest social enterprise

Our point of difference are:

The level of transparency provided on how products are made and how they should be responsibly disposed of, as well as telling the stories of businesses that are creating a positive impact and
The free, high quality sustainability and plastic reduction advice and information we provide to help businesses implement plastic reduction strategies by themselves. We have many decades of experience of work in sustainable tourism and use this expertise to develop tools and practical information to help businesses find out HOW to reduce single-use plastic and be more sustainable.

Founders

Greener Guest was founded in 2020 by four tourism professionals who are dedicated to creating a more sustainable hospitality industry, with a more environmentally responsible and socially inclusive supply chain.

The founding team comprises:

Jenefer Bobbin – (Chief Technology Officer). Experienced web designer and developer, previously working for Inmarsat. Jenefer has single-handedly developed Greener Guest’s eLearning and Marketplace platforms to minimum-viable-product.
Rachel McCaffery - (CEO). 15+ years experience driving sustainable and supply chain management for companies such as Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Holidays and STA Travel. Rachel’s focus is on supporting, developing and facilitating access to market for suppliers of sustainable products.
Jo Hendrickx - (COO). Sustainable tourism professional with over 20 years of experience in the global tourism industry and founder of sister organisation Travel Without Plastic. Jo’s focus is on marketing and customer service.
Steve Smith – (Commercial Director and CFO) currently Head of Offer at TUI Musement, formerly Commercial & Strategy Director at Virgin Holidays, and ex-KPMG and Sainsbury’s. Steve’s part-time contribution includes strategy, business model and all aspects of financial integrity.

greener guest tesam

Between them, the team have decades of experience in digital innovation, sustainability and business growth. They also have an extensive network of contacts in the technology and sustainable hospitality sectors which will be leveraged to raise awareness of the Greener Guest and optimise opportunities for growth.

greener guest marketplace

Progress

With seed support from Booking.com and Surrey County Council, Greener Guest soft launched in May 2020 and has been gathering momentum and increasing order numbers and volume since then. Test marketing is ongoing to establish the optimum product/market fit and to make continuous improvements to the site. We are also currently in the process of establishing a user panel to gain customer insight in order to improve the user experience and gearing up for the latest round of investment.

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