Updated 7 May 2012: inserted video and pictures of the event

 

routeRANK wins the 2011 SEA Sustainable Entrepreneurship Award in the category “Best Idea”. The winners of the SEA were announced during the award ceremony in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna on Thursday night (April 19).

routeRANK wins Sustainable Entrepreneurship Award
Jochen Mundinger, founder of routeRANK, receiving a SEA in the category “Best Idea” from Christina Weidinger, founder of the SEA, and Franz Fischler, President European Forum Alpbach.

 

The SEA Awards is an international award that honours sustainable entrepreneurial activities. The SEA rewards sustainable entrepreneurs who dedicate their corporate behaviour to the most concerning contemporary issues. The nominees of the awards are those entrepreneurs who work together with the others towards a sustainable future, develop intelligent solutions for the environment and society through their regular business activities, and focus their resources and ideas on social and ecological innovations. We are proud that routeRANK’s innovative technologies and products have been recognized by the jury.

The SEA also rewards the best project of a sustainable entrepreneur. The 10’000 Euros Jury prize went to BeeZee Designs and BeeZee EcoKid from Slovenia, a nature-friendly Mother and Child designer, jewelry, toys and home textile producer.

BeeZee wins Best Project Sustainable Entrepreneurship Award
Bianca Zvorc Morris, founder of BeeZee Designs & BeeZee EcoKid, receiving a SEA in the category “Best Project”, a jury prize with 10,000 euros in prize money.

Ten other companies have been honoured in the category of “Best SEA”. Baumax AG has been rewarded for its action plan for people with disabilities. Cropster GmbH received a prize for its platform supporting a sustainable agriculture, the German GLS Bank and Gugler GmbH are rewarded for their cradle-to-cradle recycling system. Other companies such as Kaito Energie AG, Saubermacher AG, and Sun Gate Herbal Trading Company have also been rewarded in the categories of environmental, integration, cultural, sportive, or social work.

Group picture of the winners of a SEA in the category
Group picture of the winners of a SEA in the category “Best SEA”

 

The SEA of Excellence Award was given to the 14-year old Felix Finkbeiner from Germany for his initiative “Plant for the Planet”. Felix Finkbeiner launched this initiative in 2007 to schoolkids with the goal to plant in each country a million trees. The jury, as well as routeRANK, were impressed by his innovative and amazing project.

Felix Finkbeiner initiator of the
Felix Finkbeiner, initiator of the “Plant for the planet” project, receiving a SEA in the category “SEA of Excellence”

 

The Wiener Zeitung published an article on the ceremony. For more information on the sustainable entrepreneur award and for the full press release, you can visit the SE-Award website.
You might as well want to browse the SE-Award gallery page for more pictures of the event.

This is the official SEA Video for the “Best Idea” category: