incognito® has won The Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development, the highest accolade for business success!
This prestigious and fantastic award has taken us 5 years to achieve and we are proud and humbled to win Sustainable Development; recognition of the passion we have for running an environmentally sustainable business, that helps so many people around the world.
The Queen’s Award is recognised as the ultimate UK business award. The category of Sustainable Development is awarded for a business: “ensuring a better quality of life for everyone, now and for generations to come.”
The Queen’s Award for Enterprise was made to incognito® for applying ethical standards to developing a range of insect repellents, which were the first products to of their kind to be as strong as pesticides, but natural and all produced with our planet in mind.
All repellent products are 100% natural and biodegradable, extracted by chemical-free processes without pesticides and fertilisers. This is a shift away from the popularity of DEET in insect repellents, which has harmful effects on the environment and safety concerns. Because the products are biodegradable, they do not pollute groundwater so this is saving thousands of litres of pesticide from entering the environment.
incognito® has also reduced packaging by up to 50 per cent and uses recycled plastic in its bottles, achieving an overall recycling rate of 95%.
Whilst being kind to the environment is at the centre of incognito® business policies, supporting the local community is also of the upmost importance.
Through our work with the Plant a Tree Today Foundation too the company is carbon positive; capturing more carbon than we emit. We have financed the planting of hundreds of trees at their most recent site Khao Yai National Park in Thailand. We chose this because some of the incognito® range is produced in Thailand and we felt it pertinent to ensure reforestation efforts in the area directly benefiting from this compensation for our own local carbon output.
MD of incognito® Howard Carter said: “I feel over the moon to have won the Queen’s Award for Sustainable Development; it is great to get such a prestigious business accolade.”
Howard is also proud of our local London ties. He says, “At the heart of the incognito® business credentials is giving back to both the environment and the local community, each year donating 10% of the profits to charity.”
In addition, we use 100% renewable electricity that is solar, water or wind-generated. All vehicles are Environmentally Friendly Vehicles and no animal testing occurs on our products or product derivatives. All products are registered with The Vegan Society.
This Royal endorsement is a huge achievement. Here at incognito® we are proud to be recognised for our ethical principles central to the business from the start. We have made our name as the most ethical and environmentally-conscious producer of insect repellent – and it is also 100% effective against all mosquitoes and clinically proven to protect you against malaria! It also works on other biting and stinging insects. We want to use the Queen’s Award to continue our fight against the risks of insect bites. And what better time to announce this Queen’s Award just 4 days before World Malaria Day – we want to raise awareness of the worldwide fight against malaria and to help more people to protect themselves when they travel.
We are so delighted to announce this prestigious achievement, only one of a select number of companies this year in the fields of: International Trade, Innovation and Sustainable Development (and congratulations to them, too) and this year is the 50th anniversary of the award!
Later in the year, the Lord Lieutenant of the County will present the Grant of Appointment and a presentational crystal bowl to winners at a special Awards ceremony.
And we wish the Queen a very happy birthday today!