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Winners of the Tenth Award (2010)
Leader Award:
Peter Bakker, became CEO of Netherland's biggest private employer, TNT, in 2001. TNT's strong commitment to responsible corporate citizenship was shaped by his work. In 2001, while on a flight to Sydney, Peter Bakker was reading an article that quoted a horrifying statistic: every five seconds somewhere in this world a child dies from hunger. A few months later, he began discussions with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to find out how TNT skills could support the agency in reaching the hungry. The partnership with the WFP, which was officially launched in 2002, was given the name "Moving the World".
Commitment and recognized personal leadership
- Peter Bakker started to recognize the interdependence and interferences between economic, social and ecologic circumstances by September 2001. He has since committed himself very strongly to sustainability.
- He decided in 2001 to stop sponsoring a famous golf tournament and instead to "invest" the key competences of his company (logistical know-how, professionalism, efficiency of the key business of the company) to activities, which help to diminish hunger and poverty in the world. His pledge: "If each company would give only a percent of the net result in form of Know-how and goods there would be a big stream of change and the world would be better."
- His goal with the WFP-partnership was not a mere PR stunt. Reporting about results started only after five years experience if there are improvements. This is a very convincing procedure compared to glossy CSR reports containing only mission statements.
- Bakker and his board of management have not only implemented sustainability key performance indicators but also implemented quantitative targets for non-financial indicators in the management compensation schemes. For years, the non-financial reports have been audited just like the financial reports.
Documented achievements in making sustainability work
- In the first five years of the partnership with United Nations' WFP, TNT invested around 38 Million Euros to restructure and train the WFP and a staggering 57% of the employees participated. This means that Bakker's idea of sustainability and engagement for sustainability projects disseminated worldwide throughout the company.
- No truck shall return empty, but transport food, medical material and so on - that's the idea realized to a big extend in practice. With the WFP-partnership TNT reached more than one million schoolchildren, as WFP confirmed. It was possible to finance and deliver 58 Million meals for them, 60 pumps for water have been installed and the company helped in 30 cases of disasters. The partnership with the WFP is now unlimited in time.
- Much earlier than others in the sector, Bakker started also to focus on the environment. In 2005, he started the program Driving Clean to reduce the pollution caused by the big fleet. In addition, he started Planet Me in late 2007, which includes a large number of innovative projects like building up a green fleet aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of the company, which has in the meantime a series of binding policies on this subject.
- Under Bakker's lead, TNT made an enormous progress in achieving international standards for all activities and also suppliers concerning ecological and social management systems, e.g. ISO 9001:2000, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and SA 8000.
Pioneer Award:
Dr. Ashok Gadgil holds a doctorate in physics from UC Berkeley, and is a Faculty Senior Scientist, and Acting Director of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and a Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. Among Ashok Gadgil's many inventions is a water disinfection system, which can disinfect drinking water for at-risk populations for about seventeen cents per person per year. For his work, he received several awards, including the World Technology Award for Energy in 2002 and the Tech Laureate Award in 2004. More than a million people in India were purchasing affordable drinking water treated with his invention at end of 2008.
Innovativeness: How to integrate sustainability principles in business
- In 1993, a deadly outbreak of cholera in India inspired Dr. Gadgil to focus on waterborne pathogens. About half of the world's people still get their water for drinking and cooking from outside their homes. As a rule, this water is untreated, and carries various pathogens, especially those causing diarrheal diseases. In the developing world, over 200 children die from waterborne diseases every hour. To help, Dr. Gadgil invented a water purification system that is cheap, safe, robust, simple to operate, and has high-throughput. The system uses ultraviolet light, rather than chemicals (like chlorine) or boiling (which can require tons of fire-wood per day) to purify the water.
- He adapted his UV water disinfection technology to the village level, which makes it applicable to millions of people in emerging markets. The technical innovation is combined with a unique business model that is based on local initiative and entrepreneurship, in order to ensure financial viability, promote reproducibility and provide income/jobs to the local population.
- The compelling technology (UV Waterworks) was developed in California and is now being implemented mainly in India, but also in the Philippines and Ghana, opening new way to solve the global water crisis and fight poverty.
Tangible results in making sustainability work in business practice
- A hallmark of the company's success has been the management's responsiveness and adaptability to market needs. Particularly in its early years, the staff's commitment to Water-Health's vision was also key to keep it going with limited financial resources.
- The management has also been savvy in approaching multilaterals like IFC - a member of the World Bank Group - for assistance, and pulling in strategic investors such as Dow Chemical, which has just put up $30 million as a partial guarantee to entice local banks to lend into the micro-water utility projects in India. With Dow as its business angel, WaterHealth remains local and focuses on the education of the local population.
Amplification and dissemination of achievements
- WaterHealth has set up organizations in India, Ghana and the Philippines. Since building capacity & business is included in the business model, successfully implemented projects spread throughout the regions. Buying drinking water has become commonplace daily activity in many parts of the world where WaterHealth operates. WaterHealth provides safe water at a considerably lower price than other established competitors while supporting local communities.
- WaterHealth is committed not only to deliver safe water to the underserved but also to recharge and replenish the global water table in a mission to return to the environment what humankind is taking from it.
- WaterHealth provides solutions that minimize negative impact on the environment and see a greater role today and in our future in the sphere of green economics.
- So far, it is one of the rare success stories of implementing high-tech applications in an emerging markets context.
 
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