Latest News | 14 September 2021
How being part of the Queen’s Award ‘family’ boosted our business
There are many different business awards schemes out there, but the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are regarded as the pinnacle.
Three years ago, washroom water conservation specialist HSG UK was awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation.
Here, in his own words, the Pride Park firm’s founder and managing director Simon Rice, explains how it has boosted his business – and why other companies should consider putting themselves forward.
The publication of The Queen’s Award for Enterprise magazine is always a red-letter day.
And sitting down to read the edition for 2021 was even more of a pleasure with Derbyshire and the East Midlands featuring heavily in the glossy tome – read it here.
Since winning The Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2018, in recognition of the benefits to businesses and venues of our Ureco washroom water conservation system, HSG continues to be invited to be featured in the annual publication.
Reading the latest edition got me thinking about what a positive difference displaying the coveted awards emblem is making to our company.
Opening the magazine to see that no less than 15 East Midlands companies had been awarded the prestigious title this year was incredible.
As well as checking the position of our own article, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about fellow Derbyshire companies such as M-Mover, highlighted for International Trade, and HUUB featured in the Innovation category.
Then, an excellent interview with John Forkin at Marketing Derby, completely filled the ‘pride tank’- that we are all part of The Queen’s Award for Enterprise ‘family’ and, together, showcase the entrepreneurial spirit that is so prevalent in our city, county and region.
Gaining The Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation was a pivotal moment for us. I couldn’t be more proud to fly the flag at our head office in Pride Park and display the emblem on all our products, vans and communications.
Our existing and potential customers recognise that The Queen’s Award is the ultimate recognition of quality and innovation. It has elevated the company to yet another level within this competitive industry.
It has also enabled us to develop our proposition and standing in the highly competitive washroom services industry – taking a lead on water conservation and the sustainability agenda.
Since launching the Ureco 12 years ago, we have installed and continue to service Ureco systems at a wide range of businesses and venues across the UK – from Tesco stores, the O2 Arena and Blackpool Pleasure Beach to smaller offices, single site pubs and restaurants.
All of our customers, large and small, have a common goal. They are committed to improving the washroom experience for their customers, reducing their water consumption and environmental impact, as well as save money both on utility bills and costly repairs.
So, how do we achieve this? The Ureco urinal sleeve stops smells by trapping urinal odours below the surface and reduces blockages through our patented enzyme system, which breaks down the fat, acid and salt in urine.
This enables the Uretech to reduce urinal flushes from around 96 times to just four times a day – saving money by reducing water consumption by up to 96%.
The innovation does not stop there and, following further extensive research and development, we more recently launched the Uretech Plus professional water management solution.
Fitted onto a venue’s existing water pipes, Uretech Plus uses the latest Wi-Fi technology to provide minute-by-minute readings of water usage to a laptop, tablet or smartphone.
A particular benefit is that it alerts to unusual water usage, for example, a leaking tap – avoiding disastrous flood damage.
The NEC was the first venue to adopt the Ureco system 10 years ago by installing it in 800 urinals across the site.
In the first year alone, it saved enough water to fill 33 Olympic-sized swimming pools and, since those early days, more than 100 million litres of water have been saved across the site.
With upwards of 2.4 million visitors coming through the NEC doors in normal times, our partnership with the venue has provided them with an easy and effective way to help meet their ambitious sustainability commitments and help them on their way to achieving greener events.
East Midlands Airport is among the latest customers to further improve its environmental credentials by adopting the Ureco at the Castle Donington passenger terminal.
Our technical team took advantage of lockdown to install the system across the site.
This will reduce EMA’s water consumption by 16,845,480 litres over the next three years, produce 5.907 less tonnes of CO2 a year and save the company more than £14,000 in water bills every year.
Food outlets have particularly engaged with Ureco – recognising that many customers judge food hygiene standards on the cleanliness of the customer washrooms.
At the other end of the food chain – Ureco is fast becoming a product of choice for food manufacturers who obviously operate under strict hygiene guidelines.
As well as household names such as McCain and Premier Foods, one of our most loyal customers is Shire Foods, which manufactures pies for supermarkets and Premier league football grounds.
Cost savings there are substantial and the factory’s hygiene team has also reported another positive impact in that the male washrooms now have to be cleaned only once daily instead of several times around the clock due to reduced odours and blockages achieved by installing Ureco.
Having demonstrated their commitment to water conservation, many venues are now engaging with us further through our latest innovation, Cleen, which is the UK’s first fully integrated washroom services system.
Visitors log washroom reviews on the Cleen App, which is free to download onto smartphones or on the Cleen Tablet, which we install on-site.
Users can either compliment accessible and clean washrooms or post feedback on issues, such as the need to refresh soap supplies or toilet paper.
The reviews are easy to post by clicking different icons and users can even upload photographs to support their review. These can then be viewed by other Cleen App users.
Venues then have access to their own Cleen Dashboard, which is a complete washroom management tool.
This enables the venue to have immediate access to the Cleen App reviews so they can directly respond to customer feedback and immediately rectify any issues reported.
The vision through all our work here at HSG is to work collectively with partners to raise industry standards and improve the world one washroom at a time.
Our eyes are now on the future. We are currently developing an application for The Queen’s Award for Sustainability, which will be an important step forward for our business and in line with the work already underway to achieve Planet Mark accreditation.
In conclusion, achieving this business accolade has been an important step change for HSG and I would encourage any other business, whatever the size, industry or target market, to apply for this prestigious award.
We are living proof of what a difference this can make. The application is not as daunting as it may first appear.
I hope that I will be reading even more Derbyshire and East Midlands success stories in The Queen’s Award for Enterprise magazine going forward and celebrating business success with even more of our neighbours in future years.
Author: Simon Rice, managing director of HSG UK
