Good Energy and Jeremy Leggett among winners at Climate Week Awards

Leading renewable energy supplier Good Energy and solar entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett were among the winners at the annual Climate Week Awards this week, which took place at Ecobuild in London on Wednesday.

Good Energy was named best business initiative. Meanwhile, Leggett, the chairman of Solarcentury and SolarAid, won the award for most inspirational person, beating off the likes of Committee on Climate Change chief executive David Kennedy and head of the Love Food Hate Waste campaign Emma Marsh.

Other winners included the charity FoodCycle (best community initiative) and the Department for International Development’s evidence base to catalyse a global market for clean cookstoves (best initiative from government or public services).

Speaking about Good Energy’s accolade, chief executive Juliet Davenport said, “Good Energy was set up over a decade ago to give people the opportunity to help tackle climate change by switching to a 100% renewable electricity supplier and supporting individuals to generate their own renewable energy. It’s great to be recognised for our work with this award.

“We had fantastic customer growth in 2013 across the business, and we’ve had a great year developing new renewable sources. I would like to thank all of our customers, old and new, and look forward to their continued support for years to come.”

In a keynote speech ahead of the awards ceremony, energy minister Greg Barker announced the first areas of the UK that would benefit from the communities programme of the government’s green deal. Six projects, in Cambridgeshire, Ashfield, Suffolk, Peterborough, Bracknell Forest and Haringey, have been awarded £19.5m in funding.

Barker described the scheme as a “street-by-street, community-based rollout of energy efficiency in our towns, cities and rural areas, working with green deal providers and local authorities“.

The energy minister was speaking at the sustainability exhibition Ecobuild, which began on Tuesday and runs until Thursday, and is taking place at the ExCel Centre in London.

For a full list of winners at the Climate Week Awards, see here. There are also lots of events all over the country taking place between now and Sunday. Find one near you.

Further reading:

Climate Week: customers urged to ditch fossil fuel funding banks

Good Energy: providing renewable energy for the masses

Government poll: 77% of Britons support renewable energy

Jeremy Leggett’s call to arms on the energy of nations

20 questions with… Jeremy Leggett