Musgrave Group Awarded Overall Award for Outstanding Achievement in Corporate Social Responsibility by Chambers Ireland

Musgrave Group has won the overall award for Outstanding Achievement in CSR at Chambers Ireland’s President’s Awards for Corporate Social Responsibility in Dublin. This is the first time that the overall award has been won by an indigenous Irish company, having previously gone to large multinationals.

Commenting on the award for the company’s Sustainability programme, Chris Martin, Chief Executive, Musgrave Group, said, “We are delighted to receive the overall award for Outstanding Achievement in Corporate Social Responsibility. We are committed to playing a leadership role in tackling sustainability challenges by managing and minimising any negative impacts of our business. We believe sustainability should not be a shopping list of gestures, but must be integral to how companies do business. Together with our retail partners we are committed to supporting vibrant sustainable communities across Ireland.”

The Corporate Social Responsibility Awards were developed by Chambers Ireland to recognise the outstanding contributions made by Irish businesses to the three key areas of social responsibility, namely the environment, the workplace, and the community. Applications for the awards are invited from small and medium-sized enterprises, large indigenous companies, and multi-national organisations alike.

The Musgrave Group’s new eco-friendly HQ in Cork was praised by the judging panel for its design and construction. The two thousand square metre headquarters’ building energy management system is designed to optimise energy usage and operational performance and reduces the carbon footprint to a quarter of that of traditional structures of the same size.

Among the other initiatives Musgrave has taken includes the signing of an electricity deal with green energy producer Energia, which will save in excess of 13,500 tonnes of C02 emissions during 2007 and is the first Irish company to obtain all of its electricity requirements from a green source. The Group also exceeded its 65% waste recycling target in 2006 in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland by diverting 16,600 tonnes of waste into recycling and away from landfill. Other initiatives include the elimination of over five million kilometres’ of lorry movements from Irish roads on an annual basis through upgrading Musgrave’s distribution network. A bio-fuels trial is also underway to convert cooking oil into bio-diesel for its fleet of delivery vehicles.