Austria - BioRegional's co-founders Sue Riddlestone and Pooran Desai were awarded by the Schwab Foundation the accolade of Social Entrepreeurs of the year, along with three others. They received the award at the World Economic Forum in Vienna in June, where awardees actively participate by providing insights on sustainability and social innovation in the discussions under the meeting's theme of Expanding the Frontiers of Innovation.
Sue Riddlestone and Pooran Desai issued a joint press statement:
'We are really honoured and delighted to join the World Economic Forum as Social Entrepreneurs today. The reason we wanted to become a part of this network is to share what we have learnt in building and creating truly sustainable communities and businesses. We also want to learn ourselves by talking with and listening to world leaders about how best we can help in the global mission to transition to a sustainable future. This is a particular focus of our work right now in the run up to next June's UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
'It was brought home to us just how high level the World Economic Forum is as we arrived this morning. We saw the tight security with many police and then as we took our seats both the Chancellor and President of Austria and the Prime Minister of Ukraine addressed the plenary. It is so high level there were even questions from the floor from Ministers! It was fascinating to hear them all speak about the very same things that are on our minds - energy and resource security - and how to create sustainable economies in their respective countries and regions. After presenting us with our award this morning, Hilde Schwab, chair and co-founder of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship advised us to please talk to everyone here as we are all on the same level. We have already made some great government level contacts and will definitely keep networking.
'We wouldn't be here at the World Economic Forum without all the skill and effort of the fantastic team at BioRegional and all our amazing partners as together we commit to try and achieve sustainability or what we call "one planet living". We hope we can say thank you to them by really multiplying our joint efforts this week at the World Economic Forum.'
The reclaimed building materials arm of the BioRegional group, BioRegional Reclaimed, is a Salvo Code member.
