Meet the 2025 Impact Award Winners
The 2025 Impact Awards showcase the incredible organisations pushing the boundaries of CSR, volunteering, and sustainability. In a year where accountability, transparency, and meaningful action matter more than ever, this year’s winners stand out as true leaders, setting the benchmark for what responsible, community-minded organisations can achieve.
Find out more about the organisations making a real difference across volunteering, CSR, and environmental impact, and discover what made their award-winning entries shine!
Volunteering Excellence
This award recognises the companies with the highest engagement and impact through volunteering.
🥇 Gold Winner: BUUK Infrastructure
BUUK Infrastructure’s winning initiative began when one employee took part in a volunteering day at Dream Care Farm CIC, a therapeutic farm supporting young people with additional needs and complex backgrounds. After seeing firsthand how the farm struggled with an unsafe, flood-prone entrance track, this employee rallied her skills, contacts, and colleagues to create a permanent solution through volunteerism.
More than 70 BUUK volunteers got involved, contributing over 500 hours to build a highway-compliant 10-metre entrance road with drainage, fencing, and signage that would have cost more than £50,000 for the farm to build. The new entrance has already transformed how the site operates, allowing minibuses, emergency vehicles, and suppliers to access the farm safely and consistently.
Our judging panel – Sanjay Lobo, CEO at OnHand, Christine Elliott, Health and Care Professions Council Chairperson, and Claire Ollington, Social Value Portal Director of Customer Operations – said that the project was “impressive and passionate”, and praised the grassroots structure, with “one person who started a movement reaching beyond the company, with a transformational project and a profound impact.”
🥈 Silver Winner: MUFG
⭐ Highly Commended: East and North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust
Best Employee Engagement Strategy
This award recognises a standout strategy to inspire, engage, and mobilise employees around CSR, volunteering, DEI, or sustainability initiatives.
🥇 Gold Winner: Equifax UK
Equifax UK has created a programme that meets people where they are, using newsletters, intranet hubs, ERG networks, and leadership updates to encourage engagement. Recognition is woven in at every stage: volunteers are celebrated through the Bravo awards, leaders regularly shout them out in company-wide comms, and “Top Volunteer” acknowledgements highlight exceptional dedication. And, crucially, the strategy is aligned to Equifax’s purpose of helping people live their financial best, with many activities instilling financial confidence in underserved communities.
Engagement has grown from 13% in 2023 to 23% in 2024, and by June 2025 they’d already achieved 73% of their annual participation target – with 100% of volunteers saying they’d do it again.
The judging panel for this category – Dr Christiane Bode, Associate Professor of Strategy at Imperial College, and Debbie Lovewell-Tuck, Employee Benefits Magazine Editor – praised Equifax UK’s “focus on incentives and recognition,” and the way the organisation embedded volunteering as an “integral piece of company culture.”
🥈 Silver Winner: DF Capital
⭐ Highly Commended: Pluxee
Best Community Impact
This award honours companies for executing a standout volunteering project that made a tangible difference.
🥇 Gold Winner: East and North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust
East and North Hertfordshire Teaching NHS Trust’s Carer Experience Service is a first-of-its-kind programme designed to support unpaid carers – people looking after loved ones who are often overlooked within hospital settings. Co-designed with the carers themselves, the service focuses on early identification, emotional support, and ensuring carers are included in their loved one’s care journey. A new digital admission system now automatically flags “cared-for” patients, allowing the team to reach carers early and offer guidance and reassurance.
Since launching, the service has supported 1,415 families and logged over 2,122 volunteer hours. Carers describe the service as “life-saving” and “profoundly supportive,” and staff have seen a cultural shift where carers are now treated as essential partners in care.
The judging panel for this category – Barbara Adu-Darko, Community Engagement Manager, Kate Walsh, Airbnb Programmes Manager of Social Impact, and Caroline Monkhouse Flower,
CEO of FEAST With Us – commented: "The Carer Experience Voluntary Service is an exemplary model of co-production and volunteer innovation within healthcare. It directly addresses a profound gap in carer recognition and support, embedding practical, emotional, and systemic change that benefits both carers and clinical teams. The design is thoughtful, the execution professional, and the outcomes genuinely transformative.”
🥈 Silver Winner: Jelly
⭐ Highly Commended: Connected Routes C.I.C.
Sustainability Champion
This award recognises companies with outstanding environmental action and measurable CO2e reductions.
🥇 Gold Winner: Faith in Nature
Faith In Nature has been putting the planet first since 1974, and their sustainability work today continues their founding belief: if we take from nature, we also have an obligation to protect and regenerate it. Their approach blends innovation, transparency and bold governance decisions. Importantly, the company has appointed a Nature Guardian to their Board, giving the natural world a real voice in how the business is run.
From pioneering refills decades before they were mainstream, to launching fully recycled and infinitely recyclable aluminium bottles, they’re always pushing for better choices for people and the planet. They also invest in nature regeneration through partnerships with organisations like the Sumatran Orangutan Society, ensuring their impact goes beyond their own operations.
The judging panel – Caroline Beard, Head of Strategic Innovation at the RNIB, and Cozzi Baring, Head of B2B Marketing at Olio – said that Faith in Nature “probably deserves a 'Lifetime Achievement' Award” for their commitment to the environment. They praised the organisation’s “pioneering governance model, solid operational delivery and robust measurement.”
🥈 Silver Winner: Play’n GO
⭐ Highly Commended: Cloud21
Most Innovative Sustainability Initiative
This award recognises creative projects that demonstrate leadership in sustainable practices.
🥇 Gold Winner: Driftime
Driftime’s winning initiative, Design Declares, stands out for giving the design industry a unified approach to sustainability that goes far beyond just a pledge. The initiative pairs a public declaration with a free, open-source toolkit that breaks big sustainability promises into clear, actionable steps. This combination of free resources makes it accessible for studios of all sizes to work towards unified sustainability goals.
The initiative brings together industrial, digital, communication, and service design under the same environmental principles, while global chapters from Ireland to Australia tailor the framework to local regulations. With social equity embedded through its “Design for Justice” Act, the movement champions communities most affected by climate change. The result is a practical system that’s changing how designers incorporate sustainability into their day-to-day.
The judges for this category – Caroline Beard, Head of Strategic Innovation at the RNIB, and Cozzi Baring, Head of B2B Marketing at Olio – praised Driftime’s initiative as an “elegant, accessible and far-reaching” strategy making a difference in global design.
Best DEI Engagement Initiative
This award recognises a successful employee-driven DEI program that fosters a culture of belonging.
🥇 Gold Winner: Connected Routes C.I.C.
Connected Routes C.I.C.’s winning initiative doesn’t just include refugee and asylum-seeking women; it’s led by them. Their flagship mentoring programme pairs women with professional mentors across sectors, while removing practical barriers like childcare, travel, and digital access so everyone can fully take part.
Nearly half the team has direct lived experience of the asylum system, and their pioneering Lived Experience Leadership Group gives programme alumni meaningful power in shaping strategy and governance, with paid roles and clear accountability from the Board. The result is a genuinely reciprocal model: refugee women progress from participants to leaders and advisors, while corporate mentors gain insight into inclusive leadership and systemic inequality.
The judges for this category – Sheryl Miller, Founder and CEO at Reboot Global, and Alex Young, Managing Director at Projects – praised the initiative for its “rare combination of moral clarity, structural innovation and measured impact” and its dedication to centering lived experience.
🥈 Silver Winner: Baringa
⭐ Highly Commended: Jelly
Best First-Year Impact
This award celebrates companies that have made a significant and measurable impact during their first year of using OnHand.
🥇 Gold Winner: Tactical Solutions
In their first year with OnHand, Tactical Solutions have turned a dispersed, field-based workforce into an engaged, impact-driven community. They started by listening – running a company-wide survey, then creating open working groups where colleagues from any role could help shape their CSR, B Corp, and sustainability agenda. OnHand was positioned as core to how the business works, not a side project, as the company made sure its people had the time and autonomy to engage in OnHand activities during work hours.
Colleagues stepped up to lead campaigns on causes including diabetes and neurodiversity awareness, “B Keeper” groups surfaced new impact leaders who have since progressed into leadership roles, and clients are now actively asking how they can get involved. Today, 95% of colleagues are signed up to OnHand—making Tactical Solutions one of the platform’s top first-year performers.
The judges for this category – Vickie Wambura, CFO & COO at Migrateful and Founder of Nafisika Trust, and Dr Ella Moonan-Howard, Senior Innovator at Alzheimer's Society – praised Tactical Solution’s “employee-directed roadmap” for its “recognition and understanding of the diversity of needs.”
🥈 Silver Winner: Teacher Booker
⭐ Highly Commended: UHY Hacker Young
Rising Volunteering Leader
This award acknowledges a company that has demonstrated significant growth in volunteer engagement over the past year.
🥇 Gold Winner: Sherwin-Williams
Sherwin-Williams has transformed volunteering and sustainability in the past year, from a vague personal objective into a shared movement. A year ago, employees were asked to lead or contribute to two positive impact actions per year, with little structure or visibility. Today, thanks to a partnership with OnHand and a smart, people-first rollout, they have a collective culture of volunteering that everyone can understand and celebrate.
They launched with real momentum: a big in-person reveal at their annual sales conference, live demos and sign-up support, plus a kick-off team challenge building bikes for charity. Leadership then embedded OnHand into annual performance goals and kept it front-of-mind in regular comms, with translation support for colleagues in France and Poland. The result is a huge increase in impact, from 600 sustainability actions in the previous year to over 90,000 logged in their first year with OnHand.
The judging panel for this category – Jamie Broderick, Deputy Chair of the Impact Investing Institute, and Dr William Fleming, Research Fellow at the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford – said Sherwin-Williams’ engagement levels were “extremely impressive,” with the potential to become “a global best practice model for corporate volunteering.”
🥈 Silver Winner: Teacher Booker
⭐ Highly Commended: Portico
Impact Leader of the Year
This award is the highest honour for a company that excels across Volunteering, DEI, and/or Sustainability.
🥇 Gold Winner: GreenZone Cleaning & Support Services
GreenZone Cleaning & Support Services take home the Impact Awards’ highest honour for a simple reason: they’re raising the bar for responsible business in their industry. From pioneering plant-based cleaning long before the industry cared, to leading the sector on carbon reporting, social value measurement, and fair work, they’ve built impact into every corner of their organisation.
Their people-first culture – now strengthened through employee ownership – champions dignity, progression, and inclusion on a remarkable scale. Add in Giving Days, charity partnerships, OnHand engagement and £17.6m in social value, and GreenZone stands out as a true impact trailblazer.
The judges for this category – Dhiraj Mukherjee, Co-Founder of Shazam and Impact Investor, and Eleanor van Heyningen, Director of Strategy and Innovation at the National Lottery Heritage Fund – said GreenZone’s initiative was “inspiring” and had “clearly set benchmarks that changed the whole sector.” They remarked that GreenZone had the opportunity to be a blueprint for how overlooked, low-margin industries can lead in ESG.
🥈 Silver Winner: Baringa
⭐ Highly Commended: EY
Final Thoughts
As this year’s Impact Awards come to a close, one thing is clear: each of our finalists has proved that great impact happens when people, purpose, and action come together. From sustainability innovations to volunteering and DEI initiatives, this year’s entrants show what’s possible when purpose is embedded into business. A huge congratulations to every organisation recognised this year!
Want to enter the awards next year? The OnHand Impact Awards 2026 will open for submissions in Q2 2026.
