Awards for Devon charities

Local charities have won a clutch of awards – mainly for environmental work.

Paignton Zoo Environmental Park was recognised for its environmental sustainability in both the Palm 105.5fm Local Heroes awards and the Herald Express South Devon Tourism & Hospitality Awards. In addition, Living Coasts won the silver award in the Most Effective Marketing category of the Herald Express awards.

Paignton Zoo has also been shortlisted in the Devon Environmental Business Initiative - DEBI – awards in the Sustainable Food, Retail, Hospitality and Leisure category. The winners will be announced at an event to be held at the Met Office in November.

DEBI is a networking organisation set up to inform, support and motivate businesses from all sectors in Devon to adopt environmentally sound and profitable business policies.

The charity’s Environmental Officer, Pete Morgan, said: “As an environmental park we put all sorts of green technologies in front of our visitors. We have introduced computerised monitoring of energy use, a biomass boiler and are carrying out a thermoregulation study on animal buildings. We are always looking for new ways to be green.”

All three of the charity’s zoos – including Newquay Zoo in Cornwall - recently passed their latest ISO14001 Environmental Management standard inspections with flying colours. The organisation has held ISO accreditation since 2005. This international standard is awarded to bodies demonstrating a real commitment to environmental improvement.