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3 September 2021
Unsplash © Charles Forerunner

French Chamber of GB launches 2021 awards to celebrate difficult year for business

The French Chamber of Great Britain has announced that the Franco-British Business Awards will return for its 22nd year. The awards will celebrate innovative companies of French and British companies alike across various areas, including community impact, Franco-British collaboration and net zero impacts. 

This year’s awards have been designed to acknowledge and commend the efforts of startups in adjusting to the challenges of the last 12 months. Awards will honour businesses which, despite the challenging context, have continued to support local communities, foster the Franco-British relationship as well as tackle the climate crisis. 

The Community Impact award, sponsored by Dassault Systemes, will acknowledge companies who have made a significant impact on local or national communities by forging links with local organisations, the charity sectors or NGOs in order to respond to the challenges of the pandemic. Last year’s winner of the Community Impact, sports retailer Decathlon, donated full face snorkel masks to hospitals in the UK and France, which were then modified by healthcare professionals and used as C-PAP ventilators for Covid-19 patients.

A Welling in Crisis award will also celebrate companies which have put mental health first in the last year, through wellbeing programmes or employee-led campaigns, and will continue to integrate new initiatives into the long-term ethos of the company.

The awards will also champion companies who have continued to foster Franco-British relations in the wake of Brexit, those who have pioneered innovative technological solutions and those who have driven net zero strategies.

“As we look ahead to a post-pandemic world and businesses adapt to a new normal, the Chamber wanted to recognise and celebrate the extraordinary lengths that businesses have gone to over the past year to take care of their people, to contribute to their communities, to keep moving towards a goal of Net Zero and to drive forwards Franco-British relations despite the challenges they have faced,” said Marilise Saghbini, Managing Director of the French Chamber of Commerce.

Applications are now open and will close on 20 September, ahead of the awards ceremony in London in November.