More companies should enter prestigious Queen's Awards says ScotAsh MD
With just a month to go until the deadline for the Queen's Awards 2009, the Managing Director of double Queen's Award winning company ScotAsh Limited is urging Scottish businesses to enter the scheme.
Picture shows, left to right: Stephen Brice, Secretary to the Queen's Award office, Chris Bennett, Sales & Quality Manager ScotAsh; Peter Quinn ScotAsh MD and David Moore, Secretary to the Prime Minister's Advisory Committee on the Queen's Awards.
ScotAsh won a Queen's Award in the Innovation category in 2005 - and cemented its success with an award in the Sustainable Development category, the only one in Scotland, in April 2008.
The company - a joint venture between ScottishPower and Lafarge Cement - manufactures cements, grouts and other construction products from power station ash, conserving natural aggregates, saving CO2 emissions and avoiding the need to landfill up to a million tonnes of ash each year.
Speaking during a visit to ScotAsh by Senior Queen's Award Office officials, Managing Director Peter Quinn said: "Since winning our first Queen's Award in 2005, our turnover and profit have grown significantly. There is no doubt that clients see the Queen's Award emblem as a hallmark of quality - and this has helped us enter new markets."
ScotAsh is currently supplying products for the groundworks of key Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games venues - the Chris Hoy Velodrome and National Indoor Sports Arena.
It is also supplying up to 150,000 tonnes of grout for the M74 road extension and from next month will supply around 140,000 tonnes for ScottishPower's new biomass plant at Longannet Power Station - just a stone's throw from the ScotAsh site.
Among its more specialised products, ScotAsh manufactures a special grout for the oil industry and this year has exported a consignment to Singapore for Tuboscope, for use in oil pipelines. The company also recently exported its innovative Superpozz concrete strengthener to Megatrax Benelux BV in Holland and continues to export cenospheres - ultra lightweight spherical particles that are widely used in aviation, plastics and ceramics, to the Czech Republic.
Last week ScotAsh was one of just a handful of Scottish companies to make it onto the CleanTech 100, compiled by The Guardian newspaper and Library House - dubbed "the official list of Europe's hottest green businesses".
Managing Director Peter Quinn said: "Scottish companies are well-known for pioneering innovations and environmental achievements, but Scottish reticence prevents our business leaders from seeking recognition for their efforts.
He added: "If Scottish companies have an achievement they are proud of - in innovation, sustainable development or international trade, then I would recommend that they enter the Queen's Awards - no other award scheme is as rigorous or as prestigious.
"We enjoyed two major celebrations after winning our Queen's Awards - and members of our team, myself included, have attended a winners' reception at Buckingham Palace and were presented to Her Majesty The Queen.
"To have your company's achievements recognised in this way is a tremendous experience."
Read the news release from the Queen's
Award office here.
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