South Yorkshire Sustainability Awards: Charity helping struggling families and top business leader given gongs

There was also well-deserved recognition on the night for a business leader whose passion to create a truly sustainable future for the salvage industry is already reaping dividends.

The Community Initiative of the Year Award, sponsored by The River Stewardship Company, recognised charities, CICs, volunteer or community groups within South Yorkshire that are doing great things to support their community moving towards net zero.

The Sheffield-based charity Baby Basics UK was the winner.

Baby Basics provides vulnerable children and their families with all the essentials they need for life with children from pre-birth to five-years-old.

It is passionate about reusing and recycling, and encouraging the public to help support vulnerable families while also preventing items ending up in landfill. Its eco-friendly initiatives include creating a handbook with tips and tricks about how to reduce waste and recycle more.

The other finalists were Betterworld.Solutions, which aims to encourage companies to adopt, publish and operate an investment policy to prevent global warming, and estimates that more climate-friendly policies in industry globally could have the equivalent impact of taking 529.5 million cars off the roads; and Labre's Hope, which is the first organisation in the UK supporting homeless people into employment through eco-friendly cosmetic making, and has transformed a site in Parkgate, Rotherham, into a vibrant centre where people experiencing homelessness can access a variety of support and start to turn their lives around.

The Business Leader of the Year Award, sponsored by Barnsley College, honours business leaders who recognise the strategory requirements for businesses to achieve/or move towards net zero.

Tom Rumboll, of SYNETIQ Ltd, was the winner.

He is passionate and committed to decarbonising the automotive supply chain, and has made remarkable inroads into providing a truly sustainable future for the salvage industry.

He leads the business that has set the standard for the vehicle recycling industry as a whole. In 2021 alone, SYNETIQ helped clients avoid 3.3 million kgs of CO2 through the supply of green parts.

Chris Rea, of AES Engineering Ltd, was the other finalist. He was recognised for his commitment to running a sustainable and ethical business.