Finalists
& Voting
8th Impact Awards 2024
Meet each of our 36 finalists below in their 3 themes of ESG and 12 categories.
For each finalist you will find a description of their project and below that a “vote here” link so that you can support as many of them as you want to, to win the People’s choice Award.
Categories:
Environmental Impact Award – Circular Economy | Environmental Impact Award – Data Initiative | Environmental Impact Award – Sustainable Impact | Environmental Impact Award – Tech for the Planet | Governance Impact Award – Diversity of thought in Leadership | Governance Impact Award – ESG Initiative | Governance Impact Award – Future of Work | Governance Impact Award – Resilient Innovation | Social Impact Award – Digital Poverty | Social Impact Award – Education Tech | Social Impact Award – Healthtech | Social Impact Award – Social Transformation
Learn more about categories
Environmental Impact Award
Data Initiative
Air Quality Data Platform
City of Westminster
Brief Description:
Westminster City Council is taking ambitious action to become a net zero council by 2030 and a net zero city by 2040. Our Fairer Environment Strategy has ambitious standards for air quality, aiming to match the more stringent World Health Organisation guidelines to limit residents’ and visitors' exposure to air pollution. In July 2023 we launched the Air Quality Data Platform, bringing together multiple air quality data sets into one freely accessible location.
The platform is pivotal in shaping our policies and interventions to reduce air pollution, fostering informed decision-making and enabling communities to understand their local air quality. The data serves as a catalyst for residents and visitors to take proactive measures to minimise exposure to poor air quality. Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, Cabinet Member for Air Quality and City Management emphasised that the council hopes “the data from these sensors will make everyone consider their personal actions.”
Climate Data Portal
Met Office
Brief Description:
The Met Office Climate Data Portal is a groundbreaking new service which aims to amplify the impact of Met Office climate data, using partner technology to make climate data more accessible and interoperable for a broader user base. This open geospatial platform allows users to view, download and combine and analyse multidisciplinary data, supporting critical decision making and maximising the impact of our climate data.
Built using Esri hub site functionality, the portal contains a range of climate data layers covering our recent and current climate along with future projections looking decades ahead. Whether you’re looking for the frequency of frosts, sea level rise under different emissions scenarios or changes in precipitation patterns for different global warming levels the data on the portal can help answer these questions.
Green Recovery Programme
Connexin
Brief Description:
Connexin is a UK-based smart technology and digital specialist, a provider of the best quality products and services across three areas: broadband, connected places and digital training. As part of connected places, Connexin specialises in end-to-end solutions for smart water metering, working with water utility companies to deploy Smart Water Networks to allow them to respond proactively and drive efficiency.
Sustainable Impact
Midlands partnership
NHS
Brief Description:
Electronic Prescribing Service (EPS) has been successful in primary care for 18 years and Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) in collaboration with NHS England and Cleo, successfully deployed EPS as a first of type to secondary care, digitising paper processes of sending prescriptions to pharmacies. Before EPS, prescribers were hand-writing paper prescriptions, posting or delivering them, or patients often having to travel to collect. Now prescriptions are sent electronically to the patients chosen pharmacy, enabling sustainability, reducing carbon footprint from delivery, increasing patient safety, and freeing time for prescribers to see more patients in clinics.
Prescribers recognised that existing processes lacked standardisation, resulting in inefficiencies, wasting valuable time and resources. Patients would either attend site to collect prescriptions, have them posted or staff had to make trips for drop-offs and medication collections.
Improving the UK’s Air Quality
Department for Transport, Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency and, Department for Environment and Rural Affairs
Brief Description:
Clean air is crucial for creating healthy urban environments where people live and work, both today and in the future. Enhancing air quality reduces the adverse effects of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) pollutants on human health and fosters better living and working conditions.
As set out in Defra’s 2019 Clean Air Strategy, transport is a significant source of air pollution. The immediate air quality challenge is to reduce NO2 emissions in the areas where concentrations of these harmful gases currently exceed legal limits.
The UK Government has overall responsibility for meeting air quality standards. Defra in partnership with DfT has lead responsibility for meeting these targets. They setup the Joint Air Quality Unit (JAQU) to deliver the Government’s NO2 reduction strategies with levers for action shared across Government departments, as well as Local Authorities (LAs). Strong cooperation and collaboration between these stakeholder communities is critical to tackling air pollution effectively.
Green Match Fund
Big Give
Brief Description:
The economic reality facing charities is bleak. Shrinking budgets, political uncertainty and turbulent economies are all putting extra financial pressure on the charity sector. For the majority of charities, public funding has shrunk, competition for grants is high, and capacity is stretched even further than ever, yet the demands aren’t slowing down. Big Give's Green Match Fund is a campaign creating impactful digital match funding solutions to address the pressing challenges facing environmental charities.
Through the innovative use of technology, the Green Match Fund harnesses the power of digital fundraising and real-time match funding to connect larger donors, the giving public and charities. So £50 from the public becomes £100, doubling the difference of contributions to help charities reach twice as many people. Our 2023 campaign raised over £4.3m for 178 charities, exemplifying the transformative potential of digital fundraising solutions in addressing environmental challenges through supporting charities.
Tech for the Planet
Carbon Planner
NatWest
Brief Description:
NatWest Carbon Planner is a free digital tool available to all UK businesses. Carbon Planner supports businesses to become more sustainable and climate conscious, helping users to identify potential cost and carbon savings. Carbon Planner enables users to measure their carbon footprint by answering a few questions, get tailored and quantified actions, set targets and start building a plan to reduce their emissions. Carbon Planner supports users throughout their end-to-end climate journey with access to resources, products and services including Climate Consultancy.
The tool is available to customers and non-customers, enabling NatWest to help as many businesses as possible. Insights show that a top priority for businesses is energy usage and the associated rising costs. Carbon Planner is designed to meet this need, supporting businesses to make sustainable choices and evidencing the potential positive financial impacts from taking action, such as reducing energy and operating costs.
Octoplus Saving Sessions
Octopus Energy
Brief Description:
Our relentless mission is to bring about a sustainable energy system faster and cheaper through the power of Kraken, our cutting-edge proprietary digital platform. Benefiting people, our planet and a future-fit greener grid.
Our environmental agenda goes above and beyond simply supplying fairly-priced 100% renewable energy to 5.4m UK households and businesses. We’re proud to be breaking new ground with tech-led, high impact, consumer flexibility projects that include our brilliant Octoplus Saving Sessions, now in its second year.
Enabled by the Demand Flexibility Service we helped create in partnership with National Grid ESO, Octoplus Saving Sessions works by paying participant customers to delay energy intensive activities out of peak demand times.
This, in turn, supports a more planet-friendly energy system by:
-Avoiding the need to fire up expensive coal plants at the last minute
-Delivering a planet-friendly, cost-effective, fuel-efficient grid
-Reducing costs for consumers during very difficult winter months
Making Zero Carbon Commuting a Reality
Mobilityways
Brief Description:
Mobilityways provides groundbreaking climate technology that helps employers measure, reduce and report their Scope 3 commuting emissions at scale. The Platform is the only software solution dedicated to decarbonising the commute. It provides full visibility of commuting challenges and identifies sustainable travel alternatives for employees to help employers reduce Scope 3 emissions in line with net zero goals.
The Platform comprises of 9 tools that allow large employers to collect, analyse and act on commuting data quickly, easily and at scale without the added cost of additional resources that would be required without it.
From creating persuasive business cases for implementing sustainable travel initiatives to building car-sharing communities that save users more than £700 a month, Mobilityways promotes and shares best practices across its partners.
Circular Economy
The National Device Bank
Good Things Foundation
Brief Description:
The National Device Bank is an initiative set up by Good Things Foundation to tackle digital exclusion by giving free refurbished devices to people in need. The National Device Bank is an alternative solution to IT asset disposal that tackles corporate e-waste and gets refurbished devices into the hands of people that can't afford their own. We have built a national hub that can take large donations of used digital devices from organisations in any sector, recycle or refurbish these, and distribute them to people without home internet access through our National Digital Inclusion Network. The National Device Bank is the sustainable solution to digital exclusion that helps people and the planet.
Send less to landfill and more to a good cause
A Good Thing CIC
Brief Description:
A Good Thing CIC is an online platform that connects charities right across the UK with businesses that have things to give away. Meaning less to landfill, and more to a good cause. Absolutely anything can be given away via our digital platform, and organisations of all sizes and types are eligible to join. Charities are 'matched' with businesses via the app, and then make arrangements between each other for the charity to collect the items.
#DonateYourDigital
Wiltshire Digital Drive
Brief Description:
Wiltshire Digital Drive (WDD) is a purpose-driven Community Interest Company (CIC), committed to bridging the digital divide, encouraging inclusion and achieving real social impact. Schools, charities, not-for-profit organisations, councils and families have all directly benefitted from WDD’s purpose-led activities — we have encouraged businesses and individuals to think differently about technology and e-waste.
With the digital divide being a huge societal issue that is largely overlooked, the dedication of WDD’s team of volunteers, combined with over 600 hours of pro-bono support to date from founding member Naturally Social and partners, has led to almost 3,000 devices being refurbished and redistributed since 2020 while simultaneously reducing landfill waste and resultant CO2 emissions locally.
WDD is fully focused on extending the life cycle of technology for as long as possible, with any tech unable to be refurbished or redistributed being responsibly recycled and contributing to the circular economy.
Governance Impact Award
Data ESG Initiative
Environmental, Social and Geopolitical insights Tool
Groundsure
Location Intelligence
Brief Description:
Groundsure is a leading UK environmental and climate data authority. We give land and property professionals expert information on risks including land contamination, flooding and ground stability, as well as forward guidance on potential climate risks, to advise their clients in the transaction.
We provide high value, property-specific opinions and analysis of land use, turning complex environment and climate data into clear and simple insights. This enables our clients to make better informed land and property decisions and more positive outcomes for our climate-challenged society.
For 20 years, our business was built on providing environmental data and risk assessments to property lawyers, conveyancers and environmental consultants based on past and current trends. Now, with ClimateIndex, we have pivoted the business to project into the future on how property and land assets could be affected by the growing impacts of climate change.
Digital Champion Programme
Primary Goal
Brief Description:
Primary Goal are the leading Digital Training provider to the Education Sector, Nation Wide. Through Louise's leadership, Primary Goal secure funds through large corporate ESG and CSR funding to provide this training free of charge to all of those who work in the Education sector, benefiting not only those individuals, however in turn their own learners, expanding the use of digital ability across the Nation. Primary Goal is unique as it is supported by Microsoft, Google and Apple.
Diversity of Thought in Leadership
DWP Gender sponsorship Programme
DWP Digital
Brief Description:
DWP Digital are driving forward digital transformation for the Department for Work and Pensions, the UK’s biggest public service department. DWP is committed to the Civil Service ambition to become the UK’s most inclusive employer and has a department-wide commitment to gender parity.
Having made a pledge of inclusion through the Tech Talent Charter for the 5thyear running, we s believe that a diverse workforce brings greater innovation, and creativity through valuing our differences and working collaboratively. We need diversity in leadership to shape the organisation direction and represent all citizens we serve.
We take an intersectional evidence-based approach to increase diversity of leadership, using data, analytics, and insight from various sources, including our annual colleague people survey, recruitment data, and career development survey. We use this to identify challenges and opportunities to provide a targeted diversity of leadership initiative with various strands including networks, recruitment, pay and leadership programmes.
Sustainable Futures Energy Forum
Sustainability First
Brief Description:
We believe that better energy literacy and climate literacy can lead to greater action in society (individual behaviour change and collective climate action). The Sustainable Futures Energy Forum, piloted and hosted by Sustainability First is an online discussion forum bringing together young people aged 18 – 25 and policymakers from the energy sector's regulator, Ofgem. Designed to share young people's perspectives and experiences, we could highlight the realities of living within our climate crisis and a cost of living crisis, and bring those lived experiences to bare on specific policy areas being developed by Ofgem for current and future energy consumers in Britain.
Changemakers and Emerging Leaders Programmes
Games Leadership Network CiC
Brief Description:
The Games Leadership Network CiC is a non-profit organisation that promotes best Leadership Practices in the Games Industry by offering free Coaching, Training and support Network to Leaders, decision makers and change managers within the Games Industry.
Resilient Innovation
Transforming justice sector digitally
MAKE TIME COUNT TODAY
Brief Description:
Make Time Count Today is a Social Enterprise driving innovation and resilience in the Justice Sector, where our digital solution "will revolutionise UK Policing". Working and co-designing with multiple Police Forces and Service Providers, we have already been able to demonstrate positive social impact in early diversion opportunities, preventing reoffending.
Our mission is to reduce reoffending, transform the way that police work and how offenders are managed and make a positive difference to the lives of victims and communities. We reinvest 51% of profits to support vulnerable people start businesses and encourage those businesses to share our vision, thus creating a resilient ecosystem of support.
What they have said about us:
"Game-changer": London Probation
"A project of immense societal value": InnovateUK
"Revolutionise Policing in this country": Police Project Sponsor
We are winners of:
-InnovateUK Grant x 2
-Police Innovation Award
-Best Digital Transformation Product 2022
LEDS,
Home Office,DDaT
Brief Description:
There is a clear and urgent need, to modernise how law enforcement consumes national data to better meet its operational needs now and into the future. Criminality operates across force boundaries. Effective national information sharing and exploitation, is key to better crime prevention and safeguarding. Resilience, support, and security risks are growing for this critical service. It must be replaced to avoid a serious impact on law enforcement. Current law enforcement practice could not effectively function without the services that PNC provides.
The programme’s aim is to deliver products that meet the current and future needs of law enforcement using technology and solutions that will allow them to evolve and adapt as these changes over time. LEDS will deliver substantial benefits achieved by enabling greater efficiency and effectiveness in law enforcement agencies.
the Viewpoint
Acacium Group
Brief Description:
Acacium Group are a leading global healthcare delivery partner. With over 40 years of experience and a global footprint, we improve people’s lives through expert healthcare, social care and life sciences. By combining access to workforce, technology and sector expertise, we increase the sustainability of the global healthcare system, from early-stage clinical research right through to palliative care.
In 2020, the Group launched the Viewpoint, an experience management program that captures how agency healthcare workers feel. To date, Viewpoint has collected 100,000 individual feedback responses from temporary healthcare workers of all specialisms in 19 Acacium Group businesses operating in 1000 sites across the UK. These insights support healthcare providers to identify and overcome barriers to workforce engagement, productivity and retention to improve the employee experience and deliver better patient care.
Future of Work
Extra Help Unit at Citizens Advice Scotland
HelpFirst
Brief Description:
The Extra Help Unit (EHU) at Citizens Advice Scotland raises complaints with energy suppliers on behalf of people who may be considered vulnerable or at risk of disconnection. Dedicated caseworkers resolve issues for more than 12,000 people each year across Great Britain.
HelpFirst is funded by Scottish Government's CivTech to solve a key problem at EHU: how to identify and prioritise the most vulnerable clients, in a situation where all the clients have vulnerable characteristics. The ongoing cost of living crisis means that EHU is overwhelmed. New solutions are needed.
WAC app
WAC
Brief Description:
WAC is a mobile app that allows hourly-paid workers and those in the gig economy to track their hours and earnings in one place, and get live payslip estimates, including tax, to ensure they are being paid correctly by their employer. We are building a global community and empowering them to take control of their working lives, receive fair pay and have access to opportunities to live the life they deserve. Since we launched in 2020, we’ve amassed over 300,000 installs, with 25,000 monthly active users recording more than 700,000 shifts each month who are claiming back thousands of pounds of unpaid wages from their employer.
Digital Culture Diagnostic
Live More Offline
Brief Description:
Alessandra La Via started her career as a corporate accountant in the Big4 before moving to FTSE 250/FTSE 100 head offices. In her successful career, she came to experience first-hand the impact of the ‘always on’ culture on wellbeing. Alessandra founded Live More Offline to realise her ambitions for positive change through promoting healthier digital workplace cultures. She is a thought leader in the fields of digital wellbeing and culture.
Live More Offline is a leading consultancy and training provider for wellbeing in the digital workplace. Our mission is to help organisations to renegotiate their relationship with technology to enhance wellbeing, performance and belonging in digital workplaces. We bring our customers through a journey of organisational change that sees them transform counter-productive digital habits, such as presenteeism and the myth of multitasking, into smarter ways of working, stronger virtual connections and leadership that models best practice in the digital workplace.
Social Impact Award
Digital Poverty
Meshii WiFi
Meshii Group Limited
Brief Description:
Meshii Wi-Fi is a decentralised mesh network designed to combat digital poverty. Last year, over 1 million residents had to cancel their broadband subscriptions due to financial constraints. In response to this issue, we have developed an intelligent internet-sharing device that can easily integrate with any internet connection.
The meshii network is built by individuals and businesses who share their unused internet with a meshii hub. Each device works as a node in the network, facilitating seamless connectivity in a specific geographic area. As the network grows, we will be able to expand our reach and provide high-speed, low-cost internet to disadvantaged communities. Meshii provides hub owners with a secure way to share their internet, earn passive income, and empower underserved communities.
The Rochdale Mesh Network
Rochdale Borough Council
Brief Description:
Rochdale Council in partnership installed a Free to user mesh network for residents living in one of the most deprived and digitally excluded areas of Rochdale; College Bank, Lower Falinge and Freehold. It enabled the provision of large-scale outdoor Wi-Fi coverage, extended from key central points across the area. It provides a cost effective way for residents to access the internet working out at approx. 27 pence per household per month which has been paid for utilising a small pot of money we secured to support people to be digitally included. It allows residents FREE access to the internet when they choose in their own home, allowing individual choice and reducing the reliance and dependency on services for internet provision. Reducing isolation and improving social connectivity. We recognised that the most important thing to address the increasing digital inequalities was to give people access to the internet.
Screen Share UK
Screen Share
Brief Description:
Screen Share has grown from a lockdown bedroom-project into the largest provider of technology to refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. We are the only refugee digital inclusion charity to cover the whole of the UK. We have so far digitally included 671 refugees by distributing laptops, phones, tablets, software, SIM Cards and digital skills training. We have done this by mobilising dozens of people in the tech sector to run basic refurbishment on devices in their own time and advocate for donations of tech. We are run by a combination of tech and refugee sector professionals. We have so far digitally included 671 refugees.
Healthtech
Verbo app
NHS Homerton Healthcare
Brief Description:
Verbo is an online speech and language therapy (SaLT) toolkit that empowers education staff to support children and young people's (CYP) communication skills.
Communication skills are vital for all CYP, with wide-reaching impact on academic attainment, employment prospects and emotional well-being. A communication-rich environment and upskilled staff are essential in supporting CYP to achieve their potential. However, access to SaLT services can be a postcode lottery.
Verbo has responded to these challenges by already providing over 400 schools an online, semi-automated solution consisting of screening tools, targets, training webinars, interventions with video modelling and downloadable resources, and robust impact measures.
Content Guru with Wavenet
NHS 999 Services
Brief Description:
Content Guru is part of the Redwood Technologies Group and, together with its partner Wavenet, has developed and delivered NHS England's new, innovative Intelligent Routing Platform, designed to improve call handling waiting times for all callers to the UK’s 999 ambulance services. This new solution is helping to ensure that callers (who are often at their most vulnerable) can connect as quickly as possible.
Vayyar pilot
Essex County Council
Brief Description:
In December 2021 Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board successfully bid for NHS funding for an accelerator programme, under the ‘Putting People at the Heart of Care’ white paper to look at how the impact of falls and subsequent admissions/need for social care could be reduced by using sensor-based falls detection technology.
Essex, focused on testing cutting edge, 4D imaging radar technology which detects, tracks and monitors activity and movement in real time across four different settings including People in the community, Sheltered Housing, Extra Care Housing and Care Homes.
It was anticipated there would be a reduction in false alarm calls in comparison to traditional wearable falls detectors. It would reduce ambulance call outs and act as an alternative device for those with cognition or memory issue or those not able to wear or press a traditional style pendant device.
Education Tech
imabi Inspire
imabi
Brief Description:
Centred on helping schools and universities gain a better understanding of their culture, imabi Inspire is designed to make students feel safer and better represented.
Offering named or anonymous reporting to flag inappropriate behaviours (including from staff as well as fellow students), the chance to provide feedback via surveys, targeted guidance from trusted sources, as well as acting as a portal for essential information – it’s an ‘all in one place’ safeguarding resource.
This innovative platform, which forms part of the wider imabi ecosystem, allows educators to receive reports of unwanted behaviour more easily and more quickly — whilst also improving triage and recording practices.
imabi Inspire also eliminates the need to have multiple communication channels and systems to get key messages and alerts to students, with the option to push real-time notifications to a student community, attaching guides and documents.
Game-based platform
Jade Autism
Brief Description:
Jade is a game-based platform that accelerates the education of neurodiverse children. The solution has 1,500 games that stimulate cognitively and track cognitive data during gameplay, which is converted to educational prognosis and developmental reports. We also train teachers to use this data for an individualized educational approach based on the needs of each child.
The Government Climate Campus
Apolitical
Brief Description:
The Government Climate Campus is an innovative learning programme by Apolitical to build climate capable governments in this critical decade. The Climate Campus is a collaboration between Apolitical, governments, world class academic institutions and philanthropy. Designed exclusively for and with public servants, the Climate Campus features online courses on climate and nature topics, communities of practice, and expert-led masterclasses and convenings. In under a year, Apolitical has already provided training to more than 30,000 public servants, giving them the knowledge and skills needed to deliver on climate targets.
Social Transformation
Housing data interventions
TPXimpact, DLUHC and seven Local authorities TPXimpact
Brief Description:
This project sees DLUHC take a critical technology stewardship role in fixing UK social housing management systems. Acting as convenors, funding discovery work and staffing an in-house team, they have diagnosed the systemic challenges causing social housing providers to use suboptimal technology. They are now co-designing interventions with local authorities, housing associations, suppliers and others. Their goal is to cut across organisational silos that have caused the industry to become dependent on siloed systems, and to identify corrective measures. Over the last 12 months, they’ve started to identify and co-design data interventions with those who’ll have to use them. They’re working on the open at bit.ly/opentools4housing and are on course to help housing services adopt modern, resilient data infrastructure. This will help services to understand the state of their housing stock, better meet residents’ needs, and plan resources based on accurate information.
Social Impact
BERRI
Brief Description:
BERRI is a digital toolset that can identify, track and support the psychological needs of children, providing individualised reports to advise their carers. It assesses needs across the domains of Behaviour, Emotional-wellbeing, Relationships, Risk and Indicators of underlying conditions for children and young people aged from 4 to 21. BERRI can then compare the level and pattern of scores to those of thousands of other children, to produce individualised advice on how to support them. This is a giant step forward compared to paper measures that take clinician time to score and interpret.
Emerging Technology Team - Simply Readable
Swindon Borough Council
Brief Description:
While the world’s been using Generative AI (GenAI) to help them manage their jobs and businesses more efficiently, Swindon Borough Council have been focusing on how GenAI can be used for positive societal impact. In a brilliant collaboration with a group of local Swindon residents who are Experts by Experience of a Learning Disability, Swindon Borough Council, supported by AWS have harnessed the power of Generative AI to aid independence for the learning disability community. "Simply Readable" is an innovative co-created solution that converts complex documents into the accessible Easy Read format. This project is not just about technology; it's about making a real impact in people's lives and Swindon are open-sourcing this solution, license-free, worldwide, enabling "Simply Readable" to redefine accessibility for an inclusive world.