Maltese student company wins HP award for responsible business

The HP award was presented during the Twenty-First Junior Achievement Young Enterprise (JA-YE) European Company of the Year Competition, hosted by JA Italy in Cagliari.

“Rewined” was the winner of this year’s HSBC company of the year 2010 organised by Junior Achievement-Young Enterprise (JA-YE) Malta and represented Malta along other 34 European student companies in Italy.

The HP Responsible Business Award, which was launched five years ago, was designed to encourage students to take social and environmental responsibility into consideration as they built their own enterprises.

It was given to the student company which did the best job at integrating a strong financial performance, social responsibility, environmental excellence and innovation into their business plan and operations.

The winning student company, “Rewined”, created serving platters by heating and flattening recycled wine bottles

Rewined Managing Director Andrew Borg Wirth explained: “We realised we wanted to create a product that was responsible and that we wanted to give something back to society as a business.

“We believe it’s really important that companies are responsible in their business and give back to their local communities,” he added.

The teams participating in the event were judged by a panel of expert volunteers from HP, and the winners received HP notebooks which would support their endeavours to grow their business further.

 “HP has teamed up with JA-YE to contribute to entrepreneurial education and social and environmental thinking in schools across Europe.

A strong social and environmental strategy is a key success factor for all companies and is increasingly expected by customers,” said Gabi Zedlmayer, Vice President, HP Office of Global Social Innovation.

“We would like to help future entrepreneurs and support start-up companies find new ways to balance the economic, social and environmental aspects of running a business most successfully, and to do well by doing good,” she added.

The HP Responsible Business Award was a result of the ongoing cooperation between JA-YE and HP. For over a decade, HP and JA-YE’s joint activities in Europe had included support for enterprise education programmes and special events through cash and equipment donations, as well as the participation of HP employees as volunteers in local JA-YE programmes.

“We are grateful to HP and its 128 volunteers for their support given to JA-YE across 10 European countries this year”, said Caroline Jenner, CEO of JA-YE Europe.

“The dynamic interaction between students and volunteers promotes hands-on, experiential learning and brings classroom concepts to life, resulting in meaningful experiences for both student and volunteer,” she concluded.

The Award was part of the HP responsible business competition, a flagship programme of JA-YE Europe, JA Latin America and JA USA. More than 200,000 students had benefited from the HP Responsible Business Competition since its inception in 2006.